


Love & Pain - (Ubi Amor Ibi Dolor completely Reworked!)

by RW Patton (sophe)



Series: Children of Mars [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Classical Latin, Dystopia, F/M, Government, Inspired by Fallout: New Vegas, M/M, Military, Philosophy, Politics, Post-Apocalypse, War, West-Wing meets the End of the World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:26:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophe/pseuds/RW%20Patton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Epic Novel of Love, Politics, Sex, & War in a Post-Apocalyptic World</p><p>With the help of her protectors, Bellona narrowly escapes from the Legate who stole everything from her after the death of her father, the first King of Nova Roma. The Legate now wears the laurel wreath of the King and controls her father’s army, and her only means of survival is to hide from his sadistic reach. But with the Tennessee Valley on the verge of falling into her enemy’s hands, she knows she must gain control of the dams before he does. If there is to be a future the next generations, Bellona must find a way to defeat the Legate and create order and structure amid the legacy of lawlessness and chaos The Virus left behind. </p><p>Martius—her lover, protector, and teacher shields her from their enemies and struggles to keep the willful woman safe while he plans for the time when they can strike down their enemy and take back what is rightfully hers. </p><p>Together, they gather allies and lay the foundations for a new society, a better society. A society where their descendants can live without fear. But nothing ever comes easy. Sacrifices must be made and lives could be lost. Because where there is love, there is always pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This novel contains Classical Latin and utilizes Ancient Roman customs and terms. Contextual translations and explanations of frequently used terms will be included in a glossary and appendix.
> 
> I have attempted to remain as true to the classical language and customs as possible, but just like the characters of Love & Pain, I have taken some liberties. No offense was intended or should be taken, it was just that the historical facts did not fit into the fictional future of the novel. 
> 
> Additionally, just as I have cherry-picked from Ancient Rome, so too have I cherry-picked geographical locations and landmarks. While I have made all attempts to be accurate to the setting, any mistakes, liberties taken, and outright fictional manufacturing's are all mine.

**2349**

Romulus found me.

I might have been seven or eight years old. (The man who was responsible for my birth wasn’t overly concerned about the number of years I had existed as his daughter and I don’t remember celebrating my day of birth while living in that small village.)

Nova Roma needed land and people to work the land and my village was simply another small blip on a map that drew the attention of some military commander. Romulus, as he was wont to do upon occasion, led the small tactical unit tasked with annexing my village, which was why he happened upon me. All of seven years old, standing on my tiptoes and painting over the graffiti with homemade pigment. Not to erase the evidence of the treasonous words, but to correct the grammatical error.

In anticipation of the annexation, which really, to be fair, was more of an invasion, someone wrote Morte ut Romulus! on one of the few intact walls remaining in the village. In the middle of the chaos and fear erupting around me, I remained vigilant with my self-appointed task. When Romulus told others the story, he swore that my tongue stuck out of the corner of my mouth. He also swore that it was Mars himself who directed him to take a closer look at me.

I turned to look at him and then informed him, Romulus the first king of Nova Roma, that the author used the prepositional phrase, and while technically it might be acceptable, it makes for a lazy translation and really should be in the dative. Mors Romulo!

I supposedly then paused and asked him if perhaps it should be mortem since really, the subject and verb were understood instead of written. I don’t remember being quite so pedantic.  
After he laughed at my precociousness, he brought me to the village center. Romulus stood me in front of the bloody corpse of the man who had been my father while his soldiers slaughtered the entire village around me. I stood silently in a field of red stained dirt and tried not to stare at the body at my feet. I was seven. I didn’t understand how an infant could resist the annexation, but they did—at least according to the soldiers around me.

Once the screams subsided and the soldiers couldn’t find any more villagers to kill, Romulus dropped me in front of a young Decanus, Martius Calliditas. He was maybe ten years older than me and he resented being assigned the role of babysitter. Martius wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and made me march with him. Because of the difference in our heights and his desire for comfort, I spent most of the time slightly hunched forward. For my part, I might have accidentally on purpose smashed the soles of my shoes against his ankle until we happened upon an unhappy compromise—I kept up with him, I said nothing, and he didn’t feel a need to guide me.

Each night, I silently cried myself to sleep. Martius stayed close enough to be a constant reminder that I couldn’t run away. Every morning when I woke up, during that horrible march back to Nova Roma, I expected to be punished for my crying. I should have been punished, but Martius never reported my crying, he kept my tears a secret.

When we finally made it back to the city of Nova Roma, Romulus announced to his advisors and then the residents of his territory that he named me his daughter. With that announcement, I stopped being the child of a man in a village so small it had no name and became Bellona, daughter of Romulus, first King of Nova Roma. I accompanied him everywhere, even on military campaigns where free women were never included. But I wasn’t just a free woman, I was the daughter of the first King of Nova Roma.

**2360**

Eleven years after Romulus found me and Martius was still very much my babysitter, he just didn’t mind it as much. We ran together every day, a habit started from when I was a little girl and had more energy than sense. I begged Martius to allow me run around the camp when my adopted father was on a campaign or the barracks when we were at home. He finally relented under one condition—the moment I could no longer keep up with him was the moment I would stop asking him to go running.

I never had a problem keeping up.

It was during our runs when I advised Martius on how to use charm and not only subterfuge to achieve his goals. I orchestrated his move to the Speculatores and then manipulated my father’s interest in Martius to encourage his rise. Once he began his climb up the ranks of the Speculatores, I orchestrated the shift of the purpose of the Speculatores. Instead of being mere observers reporting what they saw to their military commanders, the Speculatores took on a more active role, one which could be better defined as the secret police.

I had found the inspiration for the transition in one of the history books my father insisted I study. Granted, Romulus modeled himself after the founder of Rome, it didn’t mean he couldn’t adopt the ideas of the other great emperors of Ancient Rome, such as Hadrian. With some carefully placed sentences, and gentle nudges towards Martius, my father established the Frumentarii with Martius at its head.

We managed all this before I turned eighteen. Before I understood that Martius would never allow another man to be my husband. He made his intentions clear the night Nova Roma celebrated my eighteenth birthday. He took me back to my room after the celebration, took my virginity, and then took me as his lover. All without my father’s knowledge. Or so we believed.

**2363**

Even though it was understood by all that I would marry my father’s chosen, if yet unnamed, heir, the women of Nova Roma romanticized my relationship with Martius. The scribes, knowing their market well, penned the tale of our lives under the guise of fictional characters. From what I had learned from the histories, this was not unique to our society.

One such book making the rounds, Ubi Amor Ibi Dolor, made us the vanquishing heroes, working side by side to bring order to a lawless world. Martius enjoyed reading the passages to me as we laid together, hidden away in an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city when we managed to escape from the confines and prying eyes of the public.

He would read aloud about the twenty-three year old heroine’s blond hair being braided and held out of the way for her to wield her blades against their enemies, the black leather armor she wore to hide the curves traditional garments would reveal, the freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks, and the ever present smile on her lips. He especially enjoyed the passage describing the way the heroine flashed her daggers as though they were pistols. I didn’t. I was agnostic when it came to my choice of weapons. I used either guns or knives equally well, it just depended on situation.

Martius took perverse pleasure from one particular section. The author wrote about the heroine meeting a young recruit, who was under the impression that since the heroine was a woman, she was fair game. The heroine’s smile turned into what the author described as a feral grin while she separated the recruit from his penis with one of her daggers and then, just because she could, the recruit found his penis in his mouth before he bled out. That never happened, however I did threaten a recruit with castration if he didn’t stop commenting about how much he wouldn’t mind sparring with me, especially if it mean I would be under him.

The author described the thirty-three year old hero as being all angles, high cheekbones, lean muscles, and tall with dark hair. I teased him that the author used an inordinately small number of words to describe him. Martius looked up over the top of the book and smiled his half smile at me.

Once the author finished describing our physical appearance, he started listing our feats. Surprisingly, they weren’t as exaggerated as I expected them to be. Because of the role of the Frumentarii, almost all of the more violent acts inflicted on the land we conquered as we expanded our borders was attributed to Martius, but I was responsible for at least a third of them and the author pointed it out. She left bodies of criminals, presents for him, with evidence of torture. He left bodies, presents for her, nailed to the wooden poles planted along the roads.

The author didn’t limit his tale to my exploits, he included one of Martius’s. The hero and heroine scouted ahead during one campaign and found themselves in a particularly lawless outpost. A man touched the heroine and the hero witnessed it. When the army conquered the town, the man was the first one nailed to a pole and the hero gave the man’s hand to the heroine. It was then that she decided she was going to marry him, but first she had to convince her father to allow it.

**IDES MARTIUS**

As we expanded and gained more land and more people, my father and Nova Roma faced a greater challenge. He needed to find a way to bring power to the entire population and not just the limited cities lucky enough to be close to an infrastructure that survived the centuries of neglect since the fall of post-industrial civilization. Romulus decided our need was great enough that he should lead the army. He also decided I would travel with him.

The people of Nova Roma expected the battle to be quick. The men in my father’s counsel knew better. Martius’s Frumentarii discovered a resistance, led by one man who managed to unify the disparate villages and towns of the Valley behind a common cause—stopping Nova Roma’s army. But we all knew whatever resistance we faced, we needed to gain control of the TVA and the dams or Nova Roma would fall, just as its namesake fell.

And then my world fell apart. My father died. He had hidden from me just how sick he really was.

The Legate, my father’s trusted general, stole the laurel wreath from Romulus’s head before I or my father’s Praetorian Prefect, Gaius, could place it over Martius’s head. The Legate would have tried to steal me as well, but Gaius and Martius were faster. They pulled me away from my father’s deathbed and ran away from the camp at Dale Bumpees, dragging me reluctantly behind them.

During our flight from the camp, we learned that the Legate convinced Truman, the leader of the Resistance against Nova Roma’s expansion, to help him. The alliance all but guaranteed that Nova Roma, under the Legate’s rule, would succeed in conquering the Valley and the Legate would become the second king of Nova Roma.

The Legate wouldn’t be happy with me slipping through his fingers. However, even with Truman’s help, he would have to wait until the first dam was secure before going after me. Martius and Gaius planned on it being too late. They wouldn’t let him use me as validation for his reign.


	2. The Tower

**AD XV CALENDS APRILIS**  
_Bellona_

 **I** looked up from the packs I had been working on, trying to distribute the weight of our goods more evenly between them while Martius and Gaius looked at the maps. One man would point to a spot and the other would come up with reasons why we couldn’t possibly hole up in the chosen location. And then they would reverse roles. While I found it slightly entertaining, I decided the debate had gone on long enough. From what I could tell, they were leaning towards the VA llen Plant as neither man found any valid reason not to set up camp there.

I slipped up against Martius and wrapped my arm around his waist, using it as leverage to pull myself to closer to him. I didn’t bother to hide my affections. Gaius always knew about us, but I was never sure if Martius told him or if Gaius was just more observant than others. I raised myself up on my tiptoes and kissed Martius’s neck. I was about to issue a command disguised as a suggestion and Martius was still a man of Nova Roma and I was still a woman of Nova Roma, so the suggestion needed a sweetener.

“The Sterick Tower.” I tapped a spot on the map. “It was one of the abandoned buildings they converted into a sanctuary for those fleeing from the Virus when it hit the East Coast. We head to the Tower and meet up with whomever you have coming. It’s in Memphis, and because of the security necessary to keep those infected with the Virus out, secure and self-sustaining. We can fortify it and as long as we use the underground entrances, we can keep our residency a secret.” I tried to slip away from Martius, but he held my wrist and arm against his body. “Regardless of where you decide to go, the Resistance is still active, even if Truman switched sides and the soldiers loyal to the Legate could feasibly stumble across me, not to mention any of the Militia who might be wandering about.”

Gaius and Martius shared a look then Martius looked at me, “can you find the tower?” He’d taken my suggestion, as I knew he would, but he had to go through the motions of it not coming from a woman—even me.

“It’s in downtown Memphis, but they sealed the front doors in order to keep the infected out. We can probably find one of the underground entrances they installed.” I grinned up at him and made a mental note to set aside a box of sweets for him.

The sun was just coming up when we skulked away from our temporary campsite. Somehow, we managed to avoid the Resistance cells hidden around the area and make it to one of the outposts on the edges of Memphis before the sun rose high enough in the sky to rain its heat down upon us. It wasn’t the heat that was the danger, it was the threat of dehydration. When we ran, we didn’t have time to grab enough clean water to wander around indefinitely.

Martius decided to try the trading post for water, so Gaius and I headed towards the river to see if we could find any sign of one of the forgotten underground entrances.

I finally found evidence of an overgrown path and loitered around it until Gaius noticed me. It was frustrating, but men liked to be men and Nova Roma men were ingrained at birth with the concept that women were not of the same caliber as men, even the adopted daughter of Romulus. By the time Gaius convinced himself that I was indeed standing on a path that would lead to the Tower, Martius caught up with us.

“Any problems?” It didn’t matter how many times I looked at him, the fluttering in my stomach never went away. His movements were always deliberate, even when he was just standing still looking at Gaius. I felt my tongue moistening my lips before I even realized I was doing it and I took a deep breath. It wasn’t the time to think about every other deliberate move he made.

“No women.” Martius pressed his hand into the middle of my back and I leaned against him. His touch reassured me when I realized the implications of his observation. The warmth from his hand heated my back through the leather armor and I was certain that if I could see my skin, there would be mark—his mark.

I lifted my chin towards the path. Martius led the way and Gaius took up the rear with me in the middle. It was left unspoken that I needed to be protected. I pushed down the thoughts invading my mind. If they were any other men, it would be a sweet gesture, but these were men from Nova Roma and it was an unconscious act of chauvinism.

Hidden behind a wall of overgrown shrubbery, we found the outer door cracked open enough for a small person to fit through. We pulled it open just enough for Gaius’s massive frame to be able to slip through, but before the men debated the cons of closing the door behind us, we ran into a little welcoming committee—a few of the more aggressive insects left unchecked in a world with significantly less predators. With a few shots from our pistols, we disposed of them and the ante room was left as safe as it could be.

The inner door, the one that opened into the underground passage into the Tower, had been sealed. Martius began working on the terminal to unlock it while Gaius and I pilfered through the scavenged remains for anything that might possibly be useful to us.

Martius flipped the terminal off and turned around to look at me. My back might have been to him, but I still felt his gaze on me. I stopped rummaging and looked over my shoulder at him. Again, the fluttering warmth grew out from my stomach. He had on his sunglasses, but I could still see his nearly grey eyes as clearly as I saw his jaw tense when his mouth clenched or the way his muscles rippled beneath his skin in anticipation of movement.

He pulled off his glasses and stared at me. Normally, I returned and held his stare indefinitely, but this time the burden of his gaze was too much and I returned to my rummaging. I willingly gave so much of me to him, and yet I couldn’t give him that final inkling of vulnerability. He saw it. I know he did. I hadn’t even stopped to consider why I thought I needed to hide it from him. I had never needed to hide anything from him before.

I bit down my bottom lip and considered the implications. Was I turning into the type of woman Martius Calliditas despised. Romulus became my father after his army murdered my own, and now that Romulus was gone, did I want Martius to take that role? I shook my head, trying to shake the thoughts from it. I didn’t want to think about it. So intent on my ruminations, I didn’t realize Martius was standing behind me until I felt his fingers on the back of my neck. He reached down with his other hand and pulled me up until I was standing. Even then, he kept his hand on my neck.  
He pressed his lips against my temple and whispered under his breath. His words just for me. “Filia Martis, semper mea Bellona.”

I closed my eyes, letting his words wash over me and serve their intended purpose. I was his, I would always be his. That would have to be enough for now.

“Bell, Gaius and I are going to clear out the rest of the way to the tower. You stay here.” He spoke in a normal tone, one loud enough for Gaius to hear.

“But...” My hand immediately went to my dagger. I looked between Gaius and Martius, I didn’t want to look weak, I couldn’t look weak.

“Stay here.”

I hated that tone of voice. The only reason I wasn’t offended with the command was because I had heard him use the same tone with his Frumentarii. It was the ‘don’t argue with me, because you will lose and the consequences of arguing with me will be very unpleasant’ tone. He had used that tone with me only a handful of times outside of his tent. Inside of his tent, that tone took on an entirely different meaning. Again, a warmth spread through me, but this time I squelched it. He wouldn’t be able to dampen it anytime soon and it didn’t help us if I was distracted by thoughts that weren’t directly related to our immediate survival.

I realized defeat and nodded my head. Martius rewarded my obedience with a brush of his fingers across the nape of my neck and I swallowed back my sigh.

  
_Martius_

I stared at her until she looked up at me. My Bellona was beautiful, even in despair. The problem was that she didn’t realize she was in despair. A hint of amusement always hid beneath her deadly demeanor, as though she understood this great cosmic joke no one else even realized existed. But that light—the little flicker of a private joke—was missing. My concern grew even more when she couldn’t hold my stare. Even as a little girl she refused to look away, but her trace of defiance was gone.

When she looked away from me, I looked at Gaius. He was busy, or at least pretending to be busy, but he focused his attention on what looked to be no more than trash. With his interest seemingly elsewhere, I moved to her. It wouldn’t be fair to her, but if we were going to survive this, I needed to exploit the one weakness I knew she had. There was no time to think about the consequences. I would have to deal with those later, assuming we had a later.

As soon as I spoke, I saw some of her resolve return. Enough for me to feel secure in leaving her behind in the entryway. Her blood pulsed beneath my fingertips as I wrapped my hand around her neck and I closed my eyes for a moment. She had a way of doing that to me, of making me want her no matter where we were. Half of the fun came from the anticipation of not being able to have her and then finding that one spot where we no one saw us, where Bellona, adopted daughter of Romulus and Daughter of Mars, became my Bellona.

Those feelings had to go away if I was going to tell her the next part. As expected, she resisted and I resorted to the voice. It was the only way I knew of to get her to do what I needed without it turning into a fight that would go on for at least a half hour before she finally relented anyway.

Gaius, probably figuring we wouldn’t skip over the fight, nodded once and headed into the passageway leading to the Tower. I took advantage of the few moments we had alone and ran my hands down her arms. My fingers gripped hers and I pressed her arms back behind her. I leaned down to kiss her. It wasn’t the kiss I wanted to give her and I was sure it wasn’t the kiss she wanted from me, but I couldn’t leave the clearing of the building to Gaius alone.

Reluctantly I pulled away and left her in the front entrance, behind the closed door. She would be safe enough and if anyone was curious and decided to check out the underground entrance to the building, I was certain Bellona could handle them. At least until we got back to her. I didn’t know what we would find in the rooms of the building, and all things considered, I wanted to keep Bellona sheltered from any additional trauma until I was certain she could put the death of her father and the Legate’s treachery behind her. She might punish me for it later, but we couldn’t afford to have her break down.

“The terminal reported some internal fighting, but I don’t think we’ll find anything worse than some old skeletons.” I caught up with Gaius.

“She can handle skeletons, Martius.”

“No she can’t, not right now.”

Gaius didn’t say anything, but he raised an eyebrow and gave me a look. Bellona was not the type of woman who appreciated being protected. She was the type of woman who threw the head of the man who offended her lover at my feet. She was the type of woman who took out every member at the Resistance cell responsible for distributing posters of my face because she wasn’t happy with the image they used of me. I knew what Gaius was thinking and would have said aloud if we weren’t in our current situation. When she regains some of her composure, you will be a near dead man. And he was right, but it was a risk I had already calculated and was willing to take.

The most dangerous thing we encountered was one of the overgrown carnivorous insects whose ancestors had both an immunity to the Virus and predators who didn’t. We also stumbled across a mass grave site, a pile of skeletons stacked in the center of the massive lobby of first floor of the building. After staring at the bones for several moments, we emptied out a storeroom and filled every surface with bones. When we ran out of surface area, we stacked the bones on top of one another. I couldn’t clean up the blood stains, but at least she wouldn’t see any of the other reminders of death. Gaius started sorting the goods salvaged from the closet into separate piles while I double checked that the side rooms, the rooms where we would sleep, were clear of any hints of death.

“The rest of the Frumentarii will be here by tomorrow. You need to get back to the Legate.” I didn’t really want Gaius to leave, but he had already risked enough, more than enough, and he wouldn’t be able to provide a believable excuse if he stayed with us any longer than he already had.

“I don’t like leaving you two alone, Martius, especially now.” He didn’t have to add, now that Bellona was about one step away from completely losing her mind and the thought of psychotic Bellona scared him more than sociopathic Bellona.

“You will be branded a traitor, Gaius.” I grasped my friend’s forearm. “I would not have you killed because you didn’t act when you had the opportunity.”

Gaius stood up from his sorting and claimed one of the side rooms by throwing his pack into it. “There was no opportunity, Martius. The Legate had planned for this and apparently found help with an enemy.” Gaius leaned back and looked through the open doorway at me. “I would be killed regardless of me helping you escape or not.” The older man smiled suddenly, “besides, you will need a Praetorian Prefect even if you don’t have a Praetorian Guard.”

I didn’t expect him to take the invitation and leave, but I needed to give him the option. If Gaius stayed, it had to be because he stated it and not because Bellona or I asked him. I nodded my head and smiled. I didn’t need to thank him. He knew.

I threw my pack into one of the larger rooms, noting with pleasurable surprise that it was as far from Gaius’s room as possible. The bedrolls could wait until I brought Bellona back. I looked around the room, making mental notes of the structure of the room for later. My plans for Bellona included a restful sleep and short of letting her annihilate a town, I only had a few options to bring her to a place of peace. Although, I had considered scavenging for contraband substances if it meant giving her a night's rest. The only thing stopping me was the memory of her father. Romulus prohibited the use of any substances known for altering the mind, except for state celebrations, when slaves distributed watered-down wine for the feasts. I wouldn’t mar his memory by corrupting his daughter.

When I returned to the entrance, a most amazing sight welcomed me—Bellona, on her knees and bent down over her legs while reading. I much preferred her without clothing when she was in that position, but I couldn’t deny that the sight of her backside, especially covered in the tight leather pants of her armor, was enough for me to postpone our trip into the Tower.

  
_Bellona_

books weren’t desirable items. At least that's what I determined since I found more than a few storage boxes full of them. The best part about exploring abandoned structures was the treasure. Books, being heavy and not worth very much in trade, were usually left behind or used as fuel for fires. Both Romulus and my biological father taught me respect and appreciation for the written word. Without it, we would have to guess what happened or rely on oral tellings, which was how stories got lost over generations.

Just in the entryway of the passage, not even in the building itself, I found a complete copy of all three volumes of The Lord of the Rings. If I was going to have to wait, I might as well be entertained while I waited. After a quick analysis of the area, I found a spot where I had a clear line of sight of the outer door, yet remained hidden from any scavenger unfortunate enough to wander in.

I must have let my mind roam, or maybe the thirtieth page describing a place called the shire lulled me into a trance. I discovered there were a lot of words for hills, green, and hobbit holes and Tolkien wanted to utilize every single one—at least twice. I was busy reading about Hobbits when I felt Martius’s hand on the back of my neck.

I didn’t bother to turn my head to look at him, I knew Martius’s touch better than I knew my own. His fingers were gentle but firm as he lifted me to my feet. With one hand still on my neck, he used his other hand to push down on my shoulders. “Place your hands on the railing.”

There was that tone again. Martius never raised his voice, instead he utilized the opposite tactic, a soft tone coated with a combination of lust and menace. I didn’t hesitate and reached out in front of me to grab the cool metal. My torso angled between the ground and wall presented him with a view of my supplication. I pressed my shoulders back and lifted my hips, causing my spine to bow.

The hand on my shoulders moved to my hips and then unbuttoned my pants. Almost too easily. I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes, as if that would help me maintain slow even breathing. He finally removed his hand from my neck and pulled my pants down. I sensed his growing impatience as he roughly pulled the pants off, along with my boots and tossed them aside. He used his foot to kick my legs apart until my feet were about shoulders’ width apart.

I didn’t know what to expect, but my body knew that whatever his plans were, I would enjoy it. When his fingers roughly pushed inside of me, they didn’t meet any resistance. My body welcomed him and I groaned softly from the pleasure of feeling any part of him inside of me. I felt his breath on the side of my neck and ear before I heard his soft chuckle. My body responded to his voice and tightened around his fingers.

“You are mine, mea filia Martis.”

His fingers slid from me and I whimpered involuntarily. My body pressed back, seeking the return of his touch. When his fingers returned to my body, they gripped my hips and even though it was his touch that I craved, it wasn’t where I wanted him to touch me. Before my mind caught up with his intentions, I felt the air shift as he stepped behind me and then thrust into me without preamble.

I bent forward, needing to feel more of him, but he moved his hand to my hair and he used my braid to pull my head and body back against his chest. The hand on my hip slid around and his finger teased me with gentle touches, never quite giving me what I wanted. He knew how to touch me, exactly how to use my body to achieve the responses he desired. The hand in my hair moved under my arm and across my chest, and I was grateful for the support. Without his arm, my knees would have buckled and I would have collapsed.

Again, Martius’s voice tickled my ear, finding its way into my mind, fighting through the clouds of lust and need. “You are mine.” He pulled out and slammed back into me with each word and it was all I could do to keep my hands on the railing. Granted it was only my fingertips, but I had not removed them despite desperately wanting to reach back and wrap my arms around his neck.

We both sensed my approaching climax and the hand not supporting my weight moved back to my hip. He bit down on my neck where it joined my shoulder and I tilted my head to the side, opening up even more skin to his teeth, lips, and tongue.

Both of his hands tightened even more around my hips, no doubt they would leave bruises behind on my skin. I felt his release. The muscles in his stomach flexed against my back and he twitched inside of me. I desperately tried to chase it. I was so close, so near the point of having my own release when he pulled out of me and let his hands drop from my body.

I threw my head back and whimpered out a protest. That I kept my hands on the railing and didn’t move my feet or body, was testament to the control he had over me. I was close enough that I could have easily pushed myself over the edge in seconds, but I didn’t. For a brief moment, I hated him.

“Get dressed, Bellona.”

I cursed under my breath, but pulled my pants back on, not even bothering to clean myself. Once I pulled my boots on, he turned me around so I faced him and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Martius pulled me close against his chest and kissed the top of my head. He was taller than most men, but my body fit comfortably against his. My head just hit his shoulders when I bent my head against him. My arms went around his waist and I returned his embrace.

I looked up at him, not sure what I expected to see, but it wasn’t his smile. There was a sadness in his eyes that he tried to hide with his smile, but I saw it. Despite his attempt of camouflaging it, I knew it was there. Martius bent his head down and his lips pressed against mine. I clung to him with a desperation I didn’t realize I had, and a wave of fear washed over me. I feared losing his touch, I feared never feeling his arms around me again, and I felt the terror of never having another opportunity to kiss him. The intensity of my kiss increased in an urgent desire to memorize every little nuance of his touch. Martius’s hunger matched my own.

I don’t know if he shared in my fears, but I do know that he was conscious of what motivated my sudden need to be as near to him as possible. The man who should have been the Son of Mars, who should have been wearing the laurel wreath of the King of Nova Roma, knew me better than I knew myself.

  
_Martius_

When I pulled away from her lips I smiled down at her. “Meam es.”

“Tuum sum, filius Martis” She looked up at me with the same green eyes that followed my every move when she was child. A fear and sadness I hadn’t seen in years was seeping back into her demeanor and I didn’t know how to stop it. “Te amo, Martius Calliditas”

“Tene amo, Bellona Romuli.”

Eventually we separated from each other. It served no purpose to hold one another any longer. Although, I would have continued to hold her if she had protested my extraction.

“Get your pack.” I knelt down to collect the books she had found and smiled. Whoever left the books behind had eclectic tastes, both fiction and nonfiction and even some ancient histories. When I saw the book she had placed at the bottom of the pile, I had to laugh. Gaius Plinius Secundus. Bellona loved to read Pliny the Elder’s studies to me, primarily because she knew that he frustrated me, but this book was new from any of the other writings we had to leave behind when we fled. This book was a heavy volume, his Natural Histories, and frustratingly inaccurate ideas likely filled the pages. I punished her body and she punished my mind. We both reveled in the torment of the other.

With the books almost overflowing my arms, I led her through the inner door. I would have to go back to reprogram the terminal on the inside to relock the door. I also made a note to see if I could configure the terminal to notify us if someone tampered with the door from the outside. I wasn’t sure how long we would stay, but the building was a good base of operations for the time being and it would remain sound even after we had moved on.

She didn’t look around when we entered the main room. I thought that by distracting her earlier, I could keep her mind away from the reason of why we were at the Tower, but I had either overestimated the power of her need or underestimated the level of her arousal. I leaned towards the former since the latter would mean I did not have as much control of her body as I had assumed and that was not satisfactory.

From the middle of the lobby, Gaius watched us, well he probably watched her more than me. He continued separating the foodstuffs we had managed to scrounge up and then added what we had brought to his piles. Three separate stacks, one for food that would spoil sooner rather than later, one for instant and prepackaged goods—they would last longer—and the last seemed to be ingredients, things we wouldn’t be able to eat without turning them into something else. I walked past Bellona and into the room I claimed earlier. A previous occupant installed a shelf on the wall by the door, high enough up that we wouldn’t bang into it, but not too high to be out of reach. I organized the books, alphabetically by author and then by size.

She remained in the lobby staring at the floor. As much as I wanted to give her time, I couldn’t. The Frumentarii would start to arrive soon. I left a message—a drop no one else but one of my team would recognize—at the trading post announcing our intended location.

“Bellona.” I resorted to using that special voice again. I’d have to be careful and not use it too frequently, but my current needs required it.

She looked up at me when I called her name, as if she had just woken from a dream and tried to smile. I pushed down any desire to comfort her. Bellona only smiled for three men—her adopted father, Gaius, and me. I wished she could grieve, but her mourning would have to wait until after she had ripped the laurel wreath from the Legate’s head. And it was my duty to make sure it happened. I gestured to her with my head.

The pseudo smile remained as she walked across the room towards the door. She didn’t cross the threshold, instead she pressed a hand against the door jam and leaned in. “When we take over Nashville, we’re taking the Hermitage.”

“You’ll get soft.” I reached for her hand and pulled her into the room. The luxury of the Hermitage was one of the greatest rumors of the Valley. But since the front doors remained locked to most everyone, it remained in the realm of legend.

“You like me soft.” She tossed her pack down next to mine.

I pushed her against one of the wall and leaned in to kiss her. My leg went between her thighs and I ground it slowly against her. My mouth swallowed her moans while I waited for her hips to undulate against me. Once I had her body’s attention it took only a few moments to get to her the point I needed her at. I pressed one hand against her collarbone, wrapping my thumb and fingers around her neck, and used my other hand to hold her head. There were times when the smallest hint of restraint was enough for her and I hoped that this was one of those times.

I slowly pulled away from her and pressed my forehead against hers. The little sounds coming from her mouth made me chuckle. “I like you pliant, not soft.”  
I kissed her forehead and focused on unpacking the packs and organizing our room. Out of the corner of my eyes I watched as she stood in front of the shelf and ran a finger along the spine of Pliny the Elder’s book.

“Romulus’s weakness was that he did not completely embrace the Roman Empire and all that it had to offer.”  
Satisfied with the results of the room, I dug into her pack for the leather bound journal she had made for herself and a pen she had also managed to craft.

“Libres philosophorum capis.” Her seemingly casual statement made me think about our plan. Initially we just ran to escape the Legate’s reach, although I wasn’t sure Memphis was far enough ahead of him, especially since the snake allied himself with the enemy. What would we do next? We had to determine the course of action that would bring us the greatest amount of followers and garner the most loyalty. Once we seized control of the dams and took over the Valley, we needed to be able to maintain our power.

She pulled a few books from the shelf and headed back out to the main room. I followed behind her and appreciated the view. Despite all her exercise, she still resembled the soft women living in Nova Roma, and I very much enjoyed the sight she presented.

Gaius looked up at us. “I found a large pot and rigged it into a stove.”

I put the journal and pen on top of Bellona’s book stack. “Tell Gaius what you said to me.” I took my place by the jerry-rigged stove and started preparing a meal. It would be an early supper, but we hadn’t eaten anything more than dried field rations and warm food would lift all of our spirits. Bellona sat down on the ground near me and spread the books in front of her.

“Rome was able to steal liberally from Greece, they took the ideas they believed to be the best and then added to them.” She started opening the books to pages she had catalogued in her mind. It was one of her more unfortunate traits—she remembered almost everything she read. Not perfectly, but enough to be able to recall the information.

“And Romulus?”

“He only embraced the portions of the histories he thought were advantageous to his goals.” She opened her journal and started making notes. “At the time it was effective because he hadn’t yet moved east from Dallas, and he hadn’t even considered expanding much beyond the boundaries of the clans and tribes who embraced his ideals.”

Gaius paused his task of chopping vegetables and looked up at her. “It was the easiest way to control the number of people he found himself protecting while keeping the slaves and soldiers in line as well.”

“No, it offered the least resistance to start and then inertia took over.” She picked up a book and flipped to a page. “Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.”

I loved it when she spoke Latin. The way the words rolled off her tongue, it was hard not to believe that we hadn’t been somehow transported back to Ancient Rome.

“And it will only get worse under the Legate’s reign.” She looked between us, before settling her gaze on me. I saw her mind working and knew that she was about to drop something on us. Since she looked at me and not at Gaius, I knew we weren’t going to like it.

“We need to allow an easier path to citizenship, and we need to elevate the position of women.”

I could have deflected her, but I knew that after a few rounds she would still win. I looked at Gaius, but remained silent. Gaius followed my lead and didn’t protest.

“Citizens should be able to vote and hold office. Women should be considered citizens, but not able to vote. Freemen should be able to vote, but not hold any official office. And the children of freemen should be granted immediate citizenship.”

She wrote her thoughts down almost as quickly as she said them. I wasn’t sure how many would stick, in fact I was not completely happy with the general direction she seemed to be headed in, but I was willing to let her run. By the time we were ready to head to our bedrolls, we’d at least have a skeleton to start with. And something to distract her mind from the thoughts that haunted her.

“We need to convince the army that we are the better option, we need to establish ourselves as the True Rome, and Martius as the True King and heir to Romulus.”

Gaius was waiting for me to say something, but my years with Bellona had taught me infinite patience. The more patient I was, the more energy she expounded, and the easier it was to handle her. Gaius didn’t have my knowledge or experience.

“We need slaves.”

“Yes, and we will continue to keep slaves, every expansion gives us more opportunities for slaves and not all slaves will be able to earn their freedom. Skilled slaves should be paid a pecuniam, unskilled slaves should be able to learn a skill when they aren’t working.” Bellona’s forehead wrinkled and she waved her hand over the books, as though she could summon the pages by magic.

“When we take over any resistance in the region, unofficial or official armies, will be considered unskilled slaves.” She looked up at Gaius. “We decimate them. One in ten, then the other nine go into slavery and are separated to auction houses throughout our territories.”

I smiled. Romulus had focused on reestablishing Rome, but had forgotten that Rome cost money. “And we get an income.”

“There are other ways for income. Moderate taxes of course, all citizens will be required to pay them for the honor of being a citizen of the Empire.” She stared at her journal and I knew that we weren’t going to be happy with her next suggestion.

“We establish a Campus Martis and we build two temples there, one to Mars and one right next to it dedicated to Bellona. Additional temples throughout the territory—Venus Genetrix, Juno, and Jupiter. We should also encourage the use of household gods.”

“Isn’t Mars enough?” Gaius frowned.

“He is the god of Rome hence his temple on the Campus Martis, but Venus can bring the Empire income as well through her temples, and since women can become citizens they will need to be married, Venus is not the domain of marriage, that is Juno. And purely for symmetry’s stake, a temple to Jupiter since he is the husband of Juno.”

She bit her bottom lip, pulling it through her teeth and looked at me. I waited. She had a question she wanted to ask, but the answer might potentially frighten her. I focused on making our dinner while I waited. Gaius focused on dicing the vegetables into perfect squares. I added them to the cooking pot as quickly as he cut them.

I heard her take a breath and knew that she had finally decided she wasn’t as afraid of the answer as she initially thought. “Why did Romulus criminalize prostitution?”

“He couldn’t have the army distracted and if you look at the regions outside of Nova Roma. Prostitution almost always brings contraband pharma and alcohol with it.”

She accepted my answer, even if we both knew it was merely a guess. “Templum Veneris will employ temple prostitutes. And when we establish our new Rome, prostitution will not be illegal.”

I decided that I had let her run long enough. “No prostitution, Bellona. You can’t throw all of you father’s edicts away just because you want to distance yourself from the Legate.”

“Fine. But the temple will have priestesses and men can donate to the temple to receive blessings and services from Venus.”

I spooned our dinner onto plates and handed them out. “Enough talk. Dinner, then bed, and we can continue to talk tomorrow.” I grinned over at her. “And you can explain your decision to use the word Empire to refer to Nova Roma.”

“That’s not complex. We aren’t Nova Roma. We can’t take it back or we will be seen as weak because we lost it.” She looked down at the plate of food in front of her. “Plus, we might find less resistance.”

That she came to the conclusion she did, didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me, was the speed at which she reached it. While Gaius and I ate, I watched as Bellona pushed the food around on her plate and kept her attention on the books. She was a great actress. She had me convinced I had distracted her from thinking about the loss of her father and Nova Roma in the same day. “Eat your dinner, Bell.” I stared at her until I watched her take several bites. Only then did I return to my own dinner.

  
_Bellona_

Martius watched me eat—or pretend to eat. I knew that I should eat, that it wouldn’t do to have my health put at risk by the petulant actions of a little girl. But I just couldn’t make myself stick another piece of food in my mouth. There was no taste to the meat, or at least my mouth was incapable of tasting it. Martius was a very good cook, there was no way that the stew he had created was void of taste. The fault, therefore, must have been mine, and if the fault was with me it meant that I might not be the Daughter of Mars.

My namesake was said to rally the men in the field, she was said to fight alongside the men. Her Priests sacrificed their own blood to her and wars both started and ended at her temple. I was not worthy of her name and I was not worthy of being called the Daughter of Mars.

I looked back at the books. There had to be some way to see past Romulus’s willful ignorance and it provided a pleasant distraction from the thoughts of the death of the man who I came to love as a father. I both respected and appreciated every gift he gave me, even the ones I never realized were gifts. But I didn’t want to consider the fact that I had feelings for the man who had indirectly ordered the death of the man who had been my father for the first seven years of my life. I was moping. I knew I was moping.

Martius’s unrelenting stare was too much. It always had been. Any other man and I would have slit him stem to sternum, but not Martius. I finally caved and ate more of the dinner, but in a small act of defiance I continued to read from the pages in front of me.

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam. For the first in my life, I was happy that education was so limited in the region. It could be used to our advantage as long as the Legate didn’t find a way to exploit it first. I finally pushed my journal away and closed the books. The answer I needed most wouldn’t be found in the books. We couldn’t beat the Legate with edicts and words alone. I finished the food on my plate and then collected the empty dishes to wash them.

Martius watched me again, I felt his stare. For most people, his gaze was unnerving, but for me, his stare wrapped me in a shroud of comfort. I looked over my shoulder and smiled at him. I felt his hand on the middle of my back after I had returned the clean dishes to their place.

“Go to our room, Bellona.”

I frowned at his dismissal, but silently followed his directive. However, I did not do so with grace. I leaned hard against the door until it closed behind me. After stripping my armor and setting it neatly in the corner of the room, I snatched the book by written about us and sat down on my bedroll. I hated it when he treated me as a child. Who was he to give me such directives? As I looked down to the open book in my lap I found my answer.


	3. Ubi Amor Ibi Dolor

_She was ten and he was twenty. She was still a girl and he was a man. He tolerated her because she was mostly quiet. She didn’t try to have conversations with him, but occasionally she asked him questions. The girl enjoyed reading as much as the man did, but the available books were both too broad and too deep for her to fully comprehend so she relied on him to help clarify concepts._

_She was thirteen and he was twenty-three. Her body was shifting from the straight lines of childhood to the curves of womanhood. He was responsible for her well-being and leaving her behind in the tent when the army was on a campaign was no longer an option. He brought her along with him everywhere he went in camp, even when he visited the baths. When he trained with weapons, she watched him. She didn’t think that he noticed her stares, she always held her book up so that she could glance down at the pages when he looked at her. But what passed for subtly in a thirteen year old, was explicit for a twenty-three year old. This went on for a week before he started training her in the art of killing another man._

_She was sixteen and he was twenty-six. She had a body count, almost as impressive as her developing body. He watched her now. She taught him the art of politics, eschewing the need to achieve one’s ambitions on merit alone. He asked for her opinion almost as often as she volunteered it. The Emperor had always looked favorably upon him, but now, with her assistance, the Emperor favored him in front of all._

_He observed the way she touched other men. Only her fingertips would touch them and for the briefest of moments. But when did she touch him, her hand lingered and she pressed her palm and fingers around his arm or shoulder. It was never long enough to raise suspicion, but it was long enough for him to notice. He ordered that she receive her own tent, placed immediately next to his. He also stopped bringing slaves to his tent. He would still visit them, although infrequently, but always in the tents of friends._

_She was eighteen and he was twenty-eight. It was the start of June, and her father ordered that the entire Empire celebrate her eighteenth birthday. The Emperor sent over new armor crafted in a similar fashion to that of a general—a breastplate of a golden metal shaped to her body, a helmet, a blood red tunic, a leather kilt, and boots. Her father’s Palace Guardian sent her a sword and his General sent her a shield._

_He sent for a bath and priestesses came to her room to help her prepare. He waited outside the door until the priestesses left. When he walked through the door, he was greeted with a sight that poets spent centuries trying to put into words. Her legs, from the tops of the boots to the bottom of the kilt, were bare and he had took a deep breath. The armorer had been bold, there were nipples shaped into the breasts, and an indentation representing her navel decorated the defined muscles at the stomach. He didn’t speak, he didn’t trust his voice. He held out his gift for her, a whip. They had discovered the writings of a poet describing her namesake._

_She looked at the heavy leather weapon in her hand. Leather thongs fastened into a thick leather handle around which her hand fit perfectly. A few of the thongs had pieces of broken glass fastened into the knots at the end and some others had bits of metal, but most of the thongs were just knotted._

_He waited with his arms down at his sides and hands formed into tight fists. He stared at her, not blinking, just watching her. Finally, she slowly lifted her face to look into his eyes. She asked him if he had made it. He nodded his head. She fastened it to her hip, opposite the sword._

_He took a step towards her and then another until he stood just in front of her. She looked back up at him, her green eyes bright, but her pupils were large. He pressed his hand to her cheek and she leaned into his touch. As his head bent down towards her, she tilted her head back and her lips parted in natural anticipation. He was gentle, but his mouth was demanding. It was her first kiss. She reached her hands up to him and he gently brought them back down to her sides. He pulled away from her. She tried to follow him._

_He stepped away from her and held the door open for her._

_After the feast and celebration, she returned to her room and he returned to his. She set down the shield, sword, and helmet, but kept the scourge on her hip. The palace was still loud, and she used the noise to camouflage any of her sounds snuck out of her room and down the hall to his._

_She found him sitting on his cot, his leather armor already stripped and meticulously placed against the small table in the corner of the room. He saw her and crossed the floor. He reached out and pulled her into his room before closing the door._

_He was shirtless and bootless, standing there only in his kilt and she was still completely armored. Her lips parted and she took a breath. He was her running partner, her weapons trainer, her bodyguard, and her first love, now she wanted to add lover to that list._

_He lifted a hand and ran his thumb over the armor nipple, its flesh counterpart tightened as if it had been touched and he heard a soft keen escape from her mouth. He unfastened the scourge and tossed it aside. He unbuckled the breastplate and pulled it away from her body to rest it next to his leather armor. He returned to her and ran his thumb over the tunic-covered flesh of her breast. It tightened even more under his ministrations and the keen grew louder._

_She reached out to him, wanting to place her hands on his bare skin, but he gently pushed her hands back down to her sides. She compromised by pressing her shoulders back. The right corner of his mouth crooked up as though he was attempting to smile. Her breasts were firm and lifted from youth and her movement made them stand out even more despite not having any form of support._

_When the Emperor announced the feast in her honor, he stopped his infrequent visits to the slaves. That was six months prior. A month before the celebration he had stopped any manual release in preparation of her birthday. When he made the decision to claim her, he also made the decision not to tarnish her purity with any hint of corruption. That she had come to his room instead of him going to hers was a pleasant surprise._

_He pulled the tunic up over her head and admired her naked torso. For the third time he ran his thumb over her breast. For the first time skin touched skin. Her keens turned into a moan. The ignored nipple tightened in sympathy with its partner. He had seen her naked before of course, but once she started the metamorphosis into a woman, he transferred the responsibility of her hygiene to the priestesses. He was hard under his kilt. He had been hard since their first kiss and all during the celebration his thoughts had only been about his plans for after the feast._

_He kept his eyes locked on hers while his hands loosened her kilt. It slipped down her hips and dropped to the floor. He took a step backward. She took a step forward out of the kilt. He let his gaze move from her eyes down the length of her body and grinned at the sight of her. The priestesses had prepared her, even though he had never requested it. All of the hair on her body, from below the neck, had been removed. He didn’t think it was possible, but his body grew even more excited._

_He stepped aside and raised an arm and gestured to the cot. She sat on the edge, and bent down to remove her boots. He chuckled softly to himself; she kept her knees together. He stood in front of her and gently pressed her back down on the mattress. He took her arms and placed them over her head, wrapping her fingers around the bed frame. Her breath caught in her throat._

_He ran his finger down her arms, dragging them across her skin with the lightest of touches. He purposefully avoided her breasts, even when she lifted her back, trying to move into his touch. His forefinger circled around her navel, spirally outwards over the tight muscles fluttering under her skin, down over her hips, along the tops of her thighs until he reached her ankles and pulled them gently out to side. He let them drop down over the sides of the cot and bent her legs at the knees. He didn’t want to cause her undue pain, at least not her first time._

_He moved up between her legs and leaned over her to kiss her. She pulled her hands free from the frame and started to wrap her arms around his shoulders, but he gently returned them to their position. He sat back up and looked at her. She finally opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her green eyes stared into his eyes. They were so light blue that they were almost grey, but in the darkness of the tent, they had turned to a shade closer to pewter. Her body trembled involuntarily. Her tongue moistened her lips. Eventually she looked as though she were about to say something and he placed a finger over her lips and shook his head._

_She maintained her gaze, neither wanting nor able to look away from him. She nodded her head in understanding. He leaned back over her and in a whisper told her that she was a good girl. He dragged his fingers over her body again, but this time he didn’t avoid her breasts, he cupped them from underneath and ran his thumb over her nipples._

_She lifted her ribcage and her head fell back, exposing her neck. He ran his tongue down the length of the vein in her neck to her collarbone. His mouth moved further down and he wrapped his lips around her nipple. He tasted the oil the priestesses had massaged into her skin and smirked. He flicked the tip of his tongue against her and her body rewarded his effort by pressing up against his. With great care, he gently bit down, only releasing the flesh trapped between his teeth when he heard her breath catch. He kissed his way down her abdomen and across her hips._

_He looked up at her to watch her facial expressions as his lips traversed her skin until his mouth hovered the apex between her thighs. He pursed his lips together and blew and her hips bucked. He kept looking at her as his tongue stretched out to flick against her heated skin. Again she bucked up against him. He tasted the scented oil there as well. He growled at the thought of someone else touching her, even a priestess. His patience broke and he lowered his mouth to her sex, driven by a need to taste her. He held her hips down to keep her from pushing him off with the movements of her body._

_He used his tongue to enter her, groaning as his thoughts wandered to how she would feel when he was inside of her. He returned his mouth’s attentions to the sensitive knot of flesh, and slowly pushed a finger inside of her until he felt the resistance of a tattered membrane. He knew she was a virgin, but he hadn’t expected it to be slightly intact. After all, she was an active young woman. He added a second finger and slowly moved them in and out, careful not to break through the fragile membrane. He felt her tighten around his fingers, her muscles clenched around him as his lips, teeth, and tongue assaulted her. He wrapped his free arm across her stomach to hold her in place. She might not know what was coming, but he clearly read all of the cues her body was giving._

_He heard the quiet moans that accompanied her body’s release. The entire time, he watched her face. He didn’t think it was possible, but she was even more beautiful while climaxing. He pulled away from her and stood up. He removed his kilt. He knelt between her legs again and dragged a finger down between her breasts to just below her navel. Her body settled down under his touch and she managed to even out her breathing while she lifted her head to look up at him._

_He appraised her body, so soft and perfectly unmarred. And all his, and if he had his way, it would always be his. He leaned down and kissed her, knowing she would be able to taste herself on his lips and tongue. She hesitated at first, unsure of how she should respond, after all, he was the favored by the Emperor. He growled into her mouth, and she felt the vibrations run through her body. Kissing her pleased him, and she discerned that it would also please him if she returned the kiss. Again, he rewarded her with the whispered words, ‘good girl’ in her ear._

_He returned his gaze to her eyes. He wanted her. He had wanted her since he first realized she was more than just the little girl tagging along behind him, but he wouldn’t just take her. He smiled at her, then ran his hands up her arms and lifted her hands from the frame. Without any hesitation, her arms went around his shoulders and she stretched up in order to kiss him. As if she read his mind, she lifted her feet up to the cot, but kept her knees bent. With the newfound leverage, she lifted her hips up towards him in answer to his unasked question._

_He slid into her and counted to twenty until her body adjusted to the intrusion. Their wide-open eyes looked directly at one another. She bit her bottom lip, but made no show of wanting him to stop._

_Once he reached twenty he pushed himself further into her until he again felt resistance.. He had to count to thirty in order to not thrust all the way into her. He would have to use more force and once he did that, he wasn’t certain that he would be able to hold back._

_Before he even got to twenty, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled down with them. He couldn’t hold back, her urging drove him onward, he thrust hard into her, breaking through the thin membrane and entering her completely. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. He saw the tear slip down her temple and bent down to kiss it._

_He stayed fully sheathed inside of her, holding himself perfectly still until she relaxed. They started slow, hips moving together, just rocking back and forth. He didn’t move in and out, instead he used the combination of sensations of her muscles and her tightness stimulate him. Her hands moved over his back and her eyes opened. Once more, they held each other’s gaze._

_Their bodies melded together and moved in tandem. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. The reality was so much better than his imagination, but he wanted her to climax with him._   
_He wrapped an arm around her and deftly managed to flip them so that he was on his back and she knelt astride his hips. Her eyes widened at the new and more intense sensation, but she didn’t try to pull away to alleviate it, instead she ground her hips more firmly against him. He reached down between them and added to her pleasure._

_He saw her muscles in her stomach ripple and move downward until they tightened around him even more. Their gazes were locked now. Nothing could break it apart. Not even the release of pleasure slowly building within her. And especially not his own release that he tried to stall. He knew a losing battle when he saw it, but also realized that this was a battle he didn’t mind losing._

_Her breasts rose with each breath and her eyes dilated. She was so close and so was he. He grabbed her hips, digging his fingers into her flesh and thrust his hips up. The increasing need for release chased all thoughts of gentleness from his brain. He growled and pulled her down hard._

_Whatever he did worked, he felt and saw her release wash through her body. His own released followed immediately after. He slid his hands up her back and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down to his chest. He kissed her again, a replay of their first kiss, tender but firm. When she started to move, he tightened his arms around her and held her in place against him. She stretched out her legs and lied down on top of him. He stroked her back and hair until he heard the even breathing of sleep. Careful not to shift her, he reached for a blanket and pulled it over them. Soon he followed her to sleep._

_They awoke a few hours later and resumed their explorations of one another’s bodies, and then continued to make love between their brief naps. The silence of the room occasionally broken with him whispering ‘good girl’ into her ear._


	4. The Tower

**AD XV CALENDS APRILIS**

_Bellona_

To mark our first year together and my nineteenth birthday, Martius marked me. Adorning each breast was a delicate gold ring. Our relationship needed to remain hidden, but he had told me the rings represented his promise to me and my promise to him. That was four years ago. I was but a girl then, so enamored with the man that he could have convinced me of anything. My feelings hadn’t lessened. I was still enamored with him and he could still convince me of anything, it just wasn’t for the same reasons.

I tried to focus on the words covering the page of the book. I couldn’t. They danced around my vision, blending together and mocking me. Teasing me with an intimate moment in our lives that should have been private. Seriously, who wrote this novel? How did they get so much right about our lives? We worked hard to hide everything between us from that night forward, but this author managed to know the things neither of us had shared with another soul.

My timing was significantly off. I threw the book across the room in a fit of anger just as Martius opened the door. He watched the volume rotate through the air, hit the wall, then fall to the floor. He didn’t react to my overreaction. He never did. He closed the door behind him and walked to the fallen book.

“Bell.”

I knew that tone. It was the same tone he used when he was a decanus and Romulus found me scribbling on a wall. I hated that tone. I knew that I deserved it—I was acting like a child—but that acknowledgement didn’t make me any happier.

He bent down and picked up the book, brushing it off and checking it for damage. Without looking at me, he returned the book to the shelf, taking care to place it in its proper place. I stared at him. I might not be able to cause men’s sphincters to clench from my glare alone, but then Martius had ten years of experience on me. When he was twenty-three, he wasn’t running away from the life and world he had known. Romulus hadn’t even named him the head of the Frumentarii. He had no right to ruin my, admittedly immature, temper tantrum.

I crossed my arms under my breasts and narrowed my eyes. And yet, he still refused to engage. He stripped off his armor and placed it neatly in the corner besides mine then sat down next to me on his bedroll.

“If you are angry with me, then the book does not deserve your ire.”

I watched the amusement in his eyes and it only served to make me angrier. Ira furor brevis est. Before I realized it, my right arm swung back and I brought my open palm down hard against Martius’s cheek. The sound of skin against skin broke through the silence and shattered his amusement. I had slapped him only once before. It was a month or so before my nineteenth birthday and he had walked upon me and Valerius laughing with one another. He had dragged me into his tent and was lecturing me on my behavior, likening it to that of a prostitute. I had slapped him only to shake him out of the downward cycle of jealousy and then immediately kissed him. Somehow, I didn’t think kissing him would abate the anger in his eyes that had replaced the amusement.

Aut Caesar aut nihil. I raised my arm in preparation for another slap, but he caught my wrist. Before I twisted out of his grasp, he twisted my arm behind my back. My vision went red. I channeled my namesake and became the Bellona whose Priests mutilated themselves in her honor. I became the Bellona who rallied the soldiers into a frenzy. I turned into the Goddess of War whose only equal in battle was Mars. I kicked. I hit. I bit. I would have no memory of how Martius responded, but in the morning, I would wear as many bruises and bite marks as he did.

At one point, his hands gripped into my shoulders and my fists pounded into the sides of his head. My knees were in his chest and my fury gave me enough strength to push him off me. The taste of iron saturated my tongue and I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. I crouched down and panted, trying to regain my breath, but I never let my gaze shift away from him.

Martius stared down at me with that smug little grin of his. His thoughts were so easy to read from his expression alone. He let me push him off. With a scream, I bounced to my feet and charged, lowering my head and butting it against his stomach. Unfortunately, the room was much too small to gain enough momentum to do more than cause him to take a few steps backward. But it was all I needed. My fists hit his chest. And Martius stood there silent and unmoving, while I used him as a punching bag.

As my anger returned to its carefully maintained box I normally kept locked away and hidden, my voice of reason rose from the depths I had pushed it down into. I stopped hitting him and pressed my forehead against his chest.

“I am not a child, Martius.”

“Then stop behaving as one.” His arms wrapped around me, holding me closer to him. 

We stood there in silence. Me on the verge of tears, and wanting to cry for myself, for the man I hated myself for calling father, for the men who had risked their lives to save me. He just held me and silently reassured me with his presence.

He scooped me up into his arms and walked the few steps back to our bedrolls. He straightened his out with a foot and gently set me down before he retrieved mine. During our fighting, it had been kicked or pushed across the room. Once he had fixed my bedroll to his usual meticulous standards, he shifted me to it so his own bedroll received the same attentions.

I never understood his desire for everything to be perfect. His tent was always organized the exact same way and his table only held the items he used on a daily basis. Of course, those items had specific spots and even the slightest shift from their position was noticed by him and immediately fixed. I tested this out daily when I lived in his tent, before he moved me into my own.

I decided to try again. “I am not one of your Frumentarii, to command and order about.”

He smirked. He actually smirked at me. Reason conquered anger, but I glared at him nonetheless. 

He hooked his little finger through the ring in my right nipple and pulled me towards him. Complete resistance would have meant pain, but a small show of defiance would remind him that I wasn’t turning into the type of woman he sneered at in derision.

“Et suppusitio nil ponit esse.” He watched me move closer to him in order to lessen the tension.

“Auribus teneo lupum.” I whispered the words as my mouth neared his. His tongue lashed out against my cheek to the corner of my mouth and my lips parted for him.  
He kept his finger in the ring, tethering me to the place he wanted me, and used his other hand on the back of my head to pull my head nearer to him. He had not moved at all, I was the one coming to him and the symbolism was not lost on me.

He kissed me. It was a hungry kiss, like the ones I received when he returned to camp from a mission that kept him away for days at a time. Normally, those kisses meant long hours of rediscovering one another, but I knew that this night would be different. I was about to learn a lesson and ad undas, I wanted him to teach it to me.

He finally released me. I took a breath. His lessons were always gentle, but simultaneously cruel. I loved and hated them, just as I loved and hated him. The first part of the lesson was simple. I had a choice. I just had to curl up against him or under my bedroll and we would go to sleep or I submitted to his will with grace. There was never a consequence for choosing not to submit with grace. The lack of consequences made the lesson even more difficult.

He was right, I might say that I am not his to command, but time and time again, I willingly bowed to his demands.

With an enthusiastic resignation, I knelt in front of him. I positioned my body just as he had instructed me during our first year together. He leaned back against the wall with his arms behind his neck to pillow his head and looked at me. I looked into his eyes, hoping to find the spirit Pliny said lived there. Sometimes, when he let his guard completely down, I could catch a glimpse of it, but not this time. His eyes were the dark grey that hinted at both his lust and need. The lust I enjoyed, the need made me nervous. His lips hinted at a smile. He enjoyed my supplication and he didn’t bother hiding it from me. 

Tonight would be a hard lesson.

While he looked at me, I looked at him. I studied the definition of his muscles. He wasn’t just a handsome man, he was beautiful. There were times when I looked at the images of ancient statues or drawings in our books and easily pictured him as a model for a Roman artist.

He finally sat up and reached for his pack. I swallowed down my hesitations and willed the grace he demanded to emerge. I saw the blindfold in his hands and exhaled softly. Yet another thing I both loved and hated. I loved that it allowed me the freedom to lose myself, but hated that it blocked out one of my most important senses.

Martius liked leather. Just as he had made my scourge, he had made my blindfold. It fit perfectly against my eyes and blocked out all light as well as my sight when he buckled it into place. After my eyes were covered, I opened my mouth expecting the gag. In camp, when we had to be careful about noise, he had crafted a gag for me, so that I could make as much noise as I wanted without fear of discovery. Instead of the usual pressure against my lips, I felt his finger on my chin, closing my mouth.

“Not tonight, mea Bellona. Tonight, you will make as much noise as you wish without fear of repercussion.” His lips pressed against mine again and I closed my eyes behind my blindfold. I might not have fully comprehended it before, but the message was abundantly clear. He even had command of my voice, dictating when it was heard and when it was silent

I heard the noises from his rummaging through bag again. I expected him to return to me with whatever item he had procured, but instead I heard him at the edges of the room. And then more silence. I grew nervous from the anticipation of what I expected next. My mind drove me to places of depravity and pain, and yet when he did touch me, his hands were gentle. He helped me stand and then without removing his touch from me he fastened the leather bands, also crafted by him, to my wrists and ankles.

Hate and love. Everything about Martius Calliditas was bound and twisted around love and hate, and his tools of instruction were no exception. I hated the restraint, but loved the freedom the restraint gave me. I hated the way my body betrayed my feelings, but loved the responses encouraged by his attentions. Martius knew this. He admitted to me that he loved to observe the internal struggle, the war waging within me knowing what the outcome would always be.

After the bands were in place, he attached them to the tethers, I assumed he had attached them to the wall somehow and I was trying to figure out how he had fastened them, when the answer became clear. My legs were pulled apart and my arms were stretched to my sides. Low enough that the only way I would be comfortable was if I bent at the waist.

I felt his fingers in my hair, unfastening the braid and combing through the strands. I sensed him kneeling in front of me, and I leaned into his touch when his hand pressed against my cheek.

“I have one last thing, mea Bellona. You haven’t seen it yet, and if after you have tried it, you decide you want it, you only need say the words. If you are silent I will remove it.” His voice was so soft, so gentle and caring. It did not belong to the man who had restricted my movements with the intention of eventually fucking me.

I groaned softly. The voice was gentle, but the words were cruel. I would have to give words to my submission to him. I would have to state clearly to him that I wanted it. Love and hate.

The scent of newly crafted leather assaulted my senses and then I felt something tighten around my throat. He had made a band for my neck. He was putting a collar around my neck. The hate was clear and very loud in my mind. I was not a dog, a bitch to be collared. But then the love tentatively pressed against the boundaries of hate. When it didn’t find resistance it pushed itself further in. I would find more freedom with even more restraint.

His hand returned to my cheek, and his thumb stroked my cheekbone. At least I wouldn’t have to look in his eyes.

“I want to keep it.” I didn’t exactly whisper the words, but then neither did I speak them loudly.

“What do you want to keep, mea Bellona?” His voice and thumb were so gentle, so comforting.

“I want to keep the new band.” I couldn’t say collar. 

He must have realized this, because he just leaned down and kissed me. I melted into his kiss when he abruptly pulled away and I heard those two little words that sent a flood of warmth out from my sex to every nerve ending on my body.

“Good girl.”

His touch was gone. I sensed him moving around, but gave up on anticipating his next move. That was part of the lesson. I was merely along for the ride, and the sooner I gave in and allowed my mind to relax the sooner and greater the pleasure I would receive.

I shouldn’t have given in so quickly. My head was firmly pulled back and not by his hand. He had attached a tether to the band around my neck so that my neck bent backwards. I willed myself not to test or struggle against the bindings. He would teach the lesson as he saw fit, and I would accept his instruction with grace.

He ran his fingers down my side and back up my spine to my neck. I felt their pressure against the band and his breath against my ear. “Ubi amor, ibi dolor.”

  
_Martius_

I kept my fingers on her as I touched the band around her neck and knelt down in front of her. “Does this excite you, Bellona?”

I watched as her throat worked beneath the leather, swallowing back every hesitation. “Yes.”

I leaned in and kissed her. Reassurance, comfort, a reminder, it meant so many things to her and cost me nothing. It was the least I could do for her.

“Are you ready?”

Again the swallowing down of her hesitations. I could have done what I wanted to her, but that wasn’t as fun. By making her answer every question, I made her focus on the fact that she not only wanted this, she asked me for it.

“Yes.”

I stood up and wrapped my fingers around the back of her head and without any warning, pressed my cock into her mouth. I looked down at her as I felt the warm air of her breath escape from her nostrils and caress my skin. She tried to pull back, but the tethers and my hand prevented it. The only thing that would make this better for me would be seeing her eyes, but this wasn’t for me.

I tightened my fingers around the loose strands of her hair. As always, there was the initial resistance, the brief panic that she couldn’t breathe. But that panic fled as soon as it arrived and once more my skin felt her warm breath from her nose. I held her head tightly, refusing her any amount of movement.

I jerked in her mouth and she moaned. Her lips and tongue vibrated against me and I groaned. I pulled back out, until just the head rested between her lips. Again, I slammed back in. Reveling in her brief bit of uncontrolled panic. Again, she swallowed and my cock felt her throat’s sweet embrace.

My other hand went to her head and again, I pulled out almost completely. Holding her head tightly I let her lips and tongue work on the head. When I had enough of the teasing, I pushed in slowly. It took all my control to stop myself from just pushing down her throat again, but I persevered. I slowed down my movements, but my fingers remained tight. I grinned down at her. My sweet Bellona, the woman who brought fear to the Romulus’s army, was getting her mouth fucked and in return was fucking my cock her lips, tongue, and throat. The pleasure slaves of Nova Roma could take lessons from her.

Eventually the sensations were too much, even for me. I growled and gripped her head even tighter. My cock swelled and her mouth welcomed its growth. It was as if she needed to feel me deeper within her, and I obliged. My thrusts grew more forceful. Our earlier wrestling match must have aroused me more than I realized. I expected to last longer, but between her restraint and her mouth, I couldn’t fight it. Not that I wanted to.

Her mouth devoured me and my head fell back. I ground hard against her lips and before she realized what was happening, I came in her mouth. Her talented mouth swallowed everything I had to offer and then some.

Before I released her head, I unfastened the tether attached to her neck. I stepped away from her and under the rope holding her arm out while I dragged a finger down her spine. Her body shuddered slightly under the touch.

Her body’s responses to my touch fascinated me. And when she moaned, it was louder than I expected. It didn’t take very long to get hard again. There was something arousing about her bound form. Gods, she didn’t even have to be bound. The mere thought of what I was about to do next was enough.

Once more, I stepped away from her and listened for her soft moans of protest. I stepped behind her and looked down at the sight awaiting me. A quick glance and I could saw that she was as aroused as I was. I returned to her side and leaned down to whisper in her ear, my finger dragging along the leather band around her neck.

“Can you hold back?” Her submission to me was completely voluntary. It would be so easy to just take it, but it wouldn’t taste nearly as sweet.

“Yes.”

“No release until I say.” I kissed the side of her neck just above the leather band and smiled at her sigh of contentment. At least I assumed it was one of contentment. I returned to stand behind her and placed my hand in the small of her back. I gently pushed down, and her hips responded by lifting up so she was at an almost perfect height. I reached for her hips and pressed my fingers into the soft flesh. With as much warning as I gave her when I took her mouth, I pushed into her.

I felt her shuddering around me, and I pounded into her with a relentless abandon. The need to tear her apart overcame me and I lifted her hips so that she stood on the tips of her toes. Her pleasure wasn’t my immediate concern, but it was obvious. I rammed into her again and again. Reaching beneath her, I added to the sensations assaulting her body with a gentle pinch to her clitoris. Her head snapped back and she screamed out, but not in pain.

I barely heard her whimpers over my own grunts, but I knew what she was saying between each soft moan. ‘More.’ She never realized she did it and I didn’t feel a need to remind her of the urgings of her subconscious. I moved my hands back to her hips and dug my fingers into her flesh.

More bruises, but these wouldn’t be from her earlier outburst.

She lifted her hips up and her head hung down, her long hair muffled her moans and whimpers. She focused on not allowing her body the release it craved and that tended to take all of her cognitive abilities. And yet, she met each one of my powerful thrusts as much as the restraints allowed.

I felt her tighten around me, squeezing me. It didn’t take long. She had always had an uncanny ability to encourage my stamina beyond the boundaries of most men. I slammed into her and pulsed as I exploded into her, rocking my hips against hers as I filled her.

And just like with her mouth, I pulled free from her without ceremony.

I returned to her mouth, getting hard a third time would take a bit more effort, and it was only fair for her to help me along. This time I didn’t hold her head, instead I let her control the terms of her oral ministrations. I pressed my hand into her cheek and rubbed my thumb over the bottom of the blindfold. I closed my eyes to her mouth’s skills, savoring her gentle moans and frustrated groans.  
“Mea dulcis Bellona.”

She looked up at me, pausing the actions of her lips. Or at least she would have looked up at me if her eyes weren’t covered. I reached under her and flicked a nipple ring and she returned to her task. While I certainly wasn’t as hard as I had been earlier, I decided that it wouldn’t take long to match that level of arousal once I continued with my plans.

I pulled free of her inviting and delectable mouth and returned to the position of standing behind her. My hand pressed down on her bottom, and she pressed back against it. She knew what was coming next and her body invited it.

The way her ass flexed at me was too tempting. It seemed to beg for my invasion and I was only too happy to oblige. She flinched, but other than that, made no additional movement. I pressed past the initial resistance slowly. I allowed her body to grow accustomed to me, but I was relentless in my approach. I pushed in inch by inch until I buried myself completely inside of her.

She dropped her head and moaned. My Bellona found pleasure in everything. I took her brief moment of security away from her. As soon as I felt my pelvis press against her, I reached down and slid three fingers into her.

She jerked with the additional intrusion and I grew even harder within her. I circled my fingers around until I slipped a fourth into her. Then, as I slowly withdrew from her, I twisted my fingers around and brushed them against the front wall of her womb. As I rubbed that sensitive spot inside of her with my fingers, I worked in and out of her ass.

Her head snapped back and she hissed out a loud yes followed almost immediately by a soft scream of pleasure. The back of my hand pressed against the thin membrane and if I was honest with myself, the sensations combined with her complete submission was close to driving me to the edge again.

“Do you feel me, mea Bellona?”

She barely managed out a garbled yes.

“You can have release when I have mine.”

She nodded her head, but that wasn’t enough for me.

“Do you understand, mea Bellona?”

“Yes, when you have your climax, I will have mine.” She took her time forming her words around her heavy breathing.

I pulled out of her completely before I slammed back in, taking her as hard and fast as I took everything else. I moved with greater passion, keeping my fingers moving inside of her with each thrust. The harder my assault, the louder her moans, which just fed my desire even more. I impaled her with an even greater fury and abandon.

Her moans were interspersed with whispers of harder and more. And of course, I obliged. I could never say no to mea pulchra Bellona. She weathered my assault until my orgasm overtook me. My legs shook and I pulsed as I shot into her. My heart raced under the exertion and I had a smaller second orgasm when I felt her own orgasm plunge throughout her body.

However, the end of my orgasm was just the beginning of hers.

I remained insider of her, enjoying the tight warmth too much to pull out. Instead, I just focused on using my fingers. She hadn’t fully come down from her orgasm before I built her up to another one.  
Through clenched teeth, I finally pulled out of her and knelt down at her side.

I watched as her body swallowed my fingers and whispered into her ear. “De integro.”

And her body obeyed. Just as I knew it would. I refused to let her come down from an orgasm and urged more from her. Her moans and screams lost their volume, yet I wouldn’t allow her to stop. I whispered those two little words into her ear.

“De integro, de integro, de integro, de integro.”

She probably could have gone on, but my arm grew tired and I worried for her well-being. She was past the point of caring and would have allowed me to continue without protest. I pulled my fingers from her and quickly wrapped my arm around her stomach to support her while I unfastened the tethers.

As I suspected would happen, she collapsed in my arm and I slowly lowered us to the bedroll. I unfastened the cuffs and rubbed the skin that had been hidden away. Eventually, I removed the blindfold as well and bent down to kiss her lips. She purred in my arms and snuggled against me. I forced some purified water into her mouth. She would need rehydration even if she didn’t know it. I watched her swallow the water and my devious mind flashed the memory of her swallowing my seed. It was all I could do not to take her again.

Her fingertips reached up to the collar, but I pushed her hands away. I held her against me and curled up with her under the blanket. I combed through her hair with my fingers and didn’t stop stroking her until I heard her breathing even out. Once I knew sleep had overtaken her, I allowed myself to fall asleep as well, holding her even closer against me. She was mine and always would be. My last words to her before sleeping, a whispered vow of sorts. 

“Ubi amor, ibi dolor.”

 


	5. The Tower

**AD XIV Calends Aprilis**

_BELLONA_

The next morning, as we planned our day, Gaius looked between the bruise on my jaw and Martius’s black eye.

Martius grimaced and spoke under his breath, but I still heard him. “Consequences.”

Gaius shrugged his shoulders. “Even money said that you would be dead, so it looks like you came out ahead.” He pushed Martius to the foodstuffs and turned to the task of inventorying our goods.  
I couldn’t help myself, and partially because of Martius, I laughed. From their reactions, my burst of joy surprised both men. And then Martius smiled his gentle smile for me. No matter what happened around us, he would keep me whole.

I returned to my studies. My father, not Romulus, but the man who I had been born to, used to tell me the tales of Ancient Rome. One of which was about the tale of the assassination of Caesar by Brutus. Despite it being fitting, it wasn’t exactly the tale I wanted to send out into the Valley.

When I woke up that morning, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to create a legend, a tale of propaganda to create doubt in the minds of the men of Nova Roma under the Legate. The Legate would become a legend, but it would be one of infamy. We had the Frumentarii, and they would be the perfect instruments to disseminate the tales I crafted, which would eventually lead to the demand for his death. I just had to find the right emperor to shape him after.

“Caligula.” I smelled the biscuits frying on the makeshift stove and my mouth watered. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.

“What?” Martius looked at me.

“Caligula, he was so hated that his own Praetorian guards assassinated him. He started out loved, but succumbed to madness before a single year of his reign had passed.” I jumped to my feet and ran to our room. I kept an old book, one that belonged to my biological father, in the bottom of my pack and I needed it. When I returned, I noted that Gaius had put his task aside and Martius was only paying half attention to our breakfast.

I bent down and picked at a piece of meat frying in the pan, popping it into my mouth without thought of its heat or the swat to my hand with the back of the spoon delivered by Martius. “Is breakfast ready?” I smiled sweetly. I might have accepted my lessons with grace during the evenings, but that did not mean grace accompanied me during the day.

Martius looked up at me and wiggled his eyebrows in a way that could only be described as lascivious. I smirked at him then turned on my heel and walked back at my books, moving my hips from side to side in the exaggerated movements I had seen other women use.

“Gaius?”

“Hmm?” 

“How loyal are the Praetorian Guards to you versus the Legate?” My mind raced with the different possibilities. If we managed to get the stories of Caligula into the camp, it would be natural for everyone to compare Caligula to the Legate. Even how Caligula supposedly exiled or killed those he considered threats to his reign.

“If they’re still alive?”

Gaius spoke softly and I winced at my insensitivity. I had been so concerned with my own grief that I hadn’t bothered to think of the others. Of course, the Legate would have had them executed, just as I would have the Legate’s Praetorian Guards executed when Martius was crowned.

“We will find those who managed to escape, Gaius. I promise you.” 

Martius smiled sadly at me, he figured that most of his Frumentarii were safe. Gaius assumed only a few of his men made it safely out of camp.

“We need to plant some seeds, Martius. Your men, especially those in Nashville, will be perfect. I grinned up at them. “Gentlemen, we are in-”

I never finished the sentence. An inside terminal rang out its alarm and we jumped to our feet and charged down the hallway to the underground passageway. Martius and Gaius drew their pistols while I stayed back with a rifle. Martius looked back at me and nodded his head. He punched something into the terminal by the door and it started its slow slide open. As soon as I saw the Frumentarii, I lowered the rifle and turned back to return to lobby of the Tower.

I looked over at our breakfast and quickly mixed it so it didn’t burn to the bottom of the pan. I may have also nudged it with my knee so the biscuits didn’t linger in the fire. I heard their voices, but couldn’t make out the words. Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention, since in retrospect, I wasn’t sure how I missed it.

I expected the Frumentarii since I had seen them at the entrance. However, the dark haired woman behind them was not expected. I hadn’t even made myself comfortable before I was back to my feet. I didn’t care much which Frumentarius I went after, and decided on expediency. I managed to lengthen my stride enough to shorten the time it took to reach the nearest one.  
My palms slammed into his chest and he stumbled backwards. I kept slamming my hands against his chest until his back was against the wall. “What the fuck were you thinking?” My forearm went under his chin, pinning him in place.

“She was lurking out there.”

“So you wait, you fucking wait until she’s gone.” I glared at Martius, whose eyes had gone hard and his jaw clenched tightly as he ground his teeth. “I thought you trained your men better than this.” I dropped my arm from his neck, but pulled it back and made a fist. The sound of my fist hitting his jaw was satisfying, if short-lived.

I finally turned my attentions to the woman. Whatever further punishment I had for the men flittered away from my thoughts. Dark shadows haunted the skin under her eyes, and not from sleepless nights. Her hair looked stringy, even beneath the hat she had on. But it was the pallor of her skin that set me on edge. She was grey. She looked as though she could have been dead.

“Ad undas!” She was watching me with wide eyes. Something about what I had said or done must have surprised her, but neither of us were in a position to discuss it. “Did you get her weapons?”  
I huffed at the other Frumentarii until they nodded. “Are you certain? Because one of you is about to cut her loose and if you didn’t, you can be fairly certain that she’s going to use whatever you didn’t find against you.” I crossed over and stood next to Martius. “And we will watch it happen.”

Martius crossed his arms over his chest and raised his chin. He looked at the men with a glare that said more than any words. They would be punished for bringing the degenerate woman into our sanctuary.  
“Maybe we should look again.”

“You don’t say.” Martius returned to making breakfast.

I saw something in her eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or hate or a combination of both, but her entire body went rigid as one of Martius’s men moved to search her body.

“Wait.” I studied the woman’s face. Maggie the Cat of Nashville. Her namesake was a character from a book sitting on the shelf in our room. I raised my hand at the men, halting their movements. “No one touches her. No one moves.” The last statement was for her. I was fairly certain of what had happened to her, I just didn’t know who had done it. I hurried to my room and grabbed a book off the shelf and dug around in my pack for a change of clothing. I found the items I wore when traveling undercover, figuring she would feel most comfortable in degenerate clothing than she would in the tunics we wore in Nova Roma.

When I returned to the main room, Martius was dishing up breakfast and Gaius had returned to his inventorying, but the Frumentarii hadn’t moved. I stopped when I was immediately in front of her.

“Aelius is going to release you. Do me a favor and keep your eyes on me while he does it.” I wasn’t sure if she understood me, but she at least recognized the words and nodded her head. When Aelius stepped behind her to cut the ropes holding her wrists together and hobbling her ankles, she stared at me, not even blinking once.

I tilted my head towards the wall housing the room Martius and I slept in. “Come on.” I turned my back to her and started leading her towards the door next to ours. Almost as an afterthought, I looked over my shoulder at her. “You probably already know, but if you try anything, there are five men who will kill you. In fact two of them have their weapons aimed at you.”

“Never sed ya’ll were dumb.” Her voice bristled behind me.

I stopped at the doorway and let her go in first. “I’ll find you a bedroll.” I put the clothing and book on the shelf on the wall. “Do you want to wash?”

She looked at me and blinked her eyes a few times, but eventually she nodded her head.

“I can’t let you leave. You know that right?”

Again she nodded her head. My eyes narrowed. This was not the woman described in the tales we heard when we first scouted out the Valley. This wasn’t even the woman I had had occasional interactions with from a distance. I had my suspicions about what had happened, but her lack of response drove my suppositions to depths I wasn’t sure I wanted to delve into.

“I will make you a promise. You will not be harmed while you are here. In any way.” Again the vacant nodding of her head. It completely unnerved me. She was supposed to have a mouth that would make any man wince, and yet she remained silent. I tried to smile for her benefit, but I knew it looked fake. “I’ll get you something with which to wash.”

I mostly closed the door as I stepped out. I left it ajar not because I didn’t trust her, which I didn’t, I left it ajar because I didn’t want her to think we would lock her in the room. With a deep breath, I walked over to Martius. He held a biscuit up to me and lifted a brow. I took the offered treat and just shook my head. We’d have to discuss it later. “I told her I would get her water to wash up with. Will we be able to get more?”

“Titus is checking on the system to see if we can get a few of the floors fully operational. Can it wait?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to him. He thought it was just to wash off dust, but I knew that it was a cleansing. So no, it really couldn’t wait. I gripped his wrist and pulled myself down so that my lips were near his ear. “What’s the worst thing that could happen to me?”

He smiled reassuringly and covered my hand with his. “I will never leave you, mea Bellona.”

I closed my eyes and breathed out through my nose. I finally gathered enough reason not to point out that only a man would think a woman being left is the worst thing she could experience. “Literally, Martius, what is your worst nightmare involving me.”

The words clicked into place, but I was sure the image of Maggie the Cat helped. His eyes narrowed and it was all I could do to keep him from jumping to his feet. 

“I don’t think it was your men.” I hissed at him. For all that Martius and I were recognized for, no one had ever accused him or the men reporting to him of rape. I don’t think anyone considered what that meant. Martius Calliditas, sadist and head of the Frumentarii had never been accused of rape. The army of Nova Roma under Romulus wasn’t exactly without its faults, but Martius did not share in at least one of them.

Martius walked off towards what I assumed was an upper floor and hopefully a working bath.

I had no desire to return to Maggie just yet. She was a reminder to me that a woman in this world, no matter how strong, was never as strong as a man. It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on. I glared at Aelius and Faustus. They weren’t dumb men, I knew that, I had run missions with them before, and yet their stupidity in this instance was incredibly dangerous. 

“Did she have anything with her?” I asked Faustus. He picked up a pack resting against the wall and handed it to me.

I quickly made up two plates of breakfast and brought them and the pack to her room. Although I knocked, I didn’t wait for her to answer. After all, she was an uninvited guest. I handed one of the plates to her and then leaned back against the wall to eat from my own plate.

“Martius is checking to see how long it will take to get the showers working.”

Again, she nodded her head. I looked down at her. “Margarita Cattus Fraxini”

She looked up at me. “What?”

“Your name in Latin, well sort of.”

“Does that make me part of Nova Roma now?”

I snorted at her. “Hardly, besides, Nova Roma doesn’t tolerate lushes.”

“No, they prefer sadists.”

“Don’t forget murderers.” I picked at the hash Martius had made. I nodded to the book I had left on the shelf. “Your namesake is a character in that book.”

“How would you even know what I was named after?” She hadn’t eaten any of the food, but at least she stopped staring vacantly at me.

“There is really only one Maggie the Cat someone from the Valley would be named after.” I added, almost as an afterthought, “she’s a resilient woman. There are worse women you could be named for.”  
Maggie shrugged her shoulders.

“You should eat.”

Again, another shrug of her shoulders. Balancing the plate on one hand, I rubbed the back of my neck with the other. I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject, but I knew I had to. It wasn’t for her benefit, I needed to know for my own benefit.

“Any chance you’ll tell me why you aren’t by Truman’s side at the camp?”

She didn’t need to respond. Her eyes closed and I watched her breathing hitch. Truman did this? This information wasn’t something I had expected, but there was a small part of me that wasn’t surprised. Truman was closer to Martius and me than he let others know. He worked hard to hide it, but he massacred and left a similar trail of destruction in his wake. The only difference was that he hid it behind a charming facade. Martius and I might be sociopaths, but Truman was a psychopath.

I slid down the wall. I wasn’t sure how to respond. “I don’t have any medication, but I will send Titus out to gather some herbs. I could make you a tea.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Despite all your charm and wit, I find you as distasteful as you likely find me.”

“But you were a better choice than the Legate.” Once her words started, there was no stopping them. “I told him as much, and he laughed at me. I asked him where you were, and the Legate got mean. Truman didn’t stop him from...” She struggled to find words, but remained silent, letting her say her peace. “From taking it out on one of the slaves. When I tried to get Truman to stop it, he just laughed.” She looked up at me and despite all my feelings of dislike for her, my heart broke. Margarita Cattus was in love with Truman. “He said I was next.”

I waited in silence. There were no words of comfort I could give her that would come close to assuaging her pain.

“I don’t think I remember much.”

I put the plate down on the floor. Whatever appetite Martius had brought about in me was dampened by her admission.

“Then I was at Cormorant. I didn’t want to go back to Nashville, but I couldn’t go to Brownsville either.” The plea in her eyes was so obvious. She just wanted to get as far away from it as possible, she needed to get as far away from everything that would remind her of the man who had betrayed her.

I am not sure what emotions overcame me just then, I have a feeling it was the compulsion to let a woman know that despite everything that happened to her, she was safe. I slid across the floor and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Then I held her. I couldn’t even begin to explain her motivations, the reason why she collapsed on to me and cried. Her arms tightened around me and loud sobs wracked through her body.

We sat together in her room. Me holding her while she cried. Neither of us felt a need to pull away, even when Martius quietly pushed the door open and looked in on us. If he was surprised, I didn’t see it. He looked between the two of us and nodded his head once before walking away.

I gently pulled away from her, “Margarita Cattus, the shower’s ready.” I slowly stood up, took the clothes in one hand and her hand in my other hand. I pulled up her unresisting body and quietly led her towards the bathroom.

“I still hate you, you sick fuck.” There was no vitriol in her words.

“And I still lack respect for you, lush.” I tried to at least be gentle with my insult.

Once in the bathroom, I made to leave, but she stopped me. “Please.”

I understood. She didn’t want to be alone. I could have been one of the massive man-eating bears that seemed to thrive in the post-Virus world and she would have asked me to stay. I nodded my head. I made myself busy folding up the clothing I had brought for her to change into. I looked down at my own leather armor and decided that I might as well be comfortable too. Once she finished her shower, I would find something to change into. I might have given her one of my disguises, but I could piece together another one from what we had brought with and managed to scrounge up.

When I turned back around, she had stripped. I staunched my desire to vomit. Truman wasn’t the only one who had abused her. The Legate had marked her arms and legs with cuts from a curved blade. They were the ritual markings the Priests of Bellona made in sacrifice before war. He blasphemed my namesake. The worst though, was that she was bleeding from between the legs. This wasn’t the natural blood of a menses, this was the bleeding from a wound.

“Maggie the Cat.” I whispered at her and tried to pull my gaze away from her beaten body. “We need to get you medical care.”

She sat down in the dirty shower and sobbed again. The water washed over her skin, but it wouldn’t wash away the sensations only she felt. I was helpless to do anything for her. I couldn’t leave her alone, but at the same time I needed to do something, anything really. “I will be right back. I promise.”

I ran down the hallway. For the second time in as many days, anger blinded my vision. I ripped a piece of paper from my journal and stopped before I wrote a quick message. I knew that the Truman’s doctor friend would be able to help, would want to help, I just had to figure out how to convey all the information without revealing anything.

The men stared at me, but only Martius dared approach. I was crouching, so I had to look up at him. “Holdyn, does he know Greek?”

“The language? No.”

“The histories?”

“Not sure, I would say probably, but he does know Latin.”

“So does the Legate.”

I decided to risk it and wrote a very quick message. ‘Lucretia in need of assistance from a loyal friend. The tradition of the staff and snake will be respected.‘ I only hoped he would be able to read between the lines. I folded the paper in half and walked over to Titus.

“Find Holdyn Leal, give him this, and bring him back here.” He held on to the piece of paper, but I didn’t release it. “Do not use any threats. Just tell him his friend needs him and he will be safe.”  
“He doesn’t trust anyone from Nova Roma, and is he even in Memphis?” Titus looked at me as though I had gone mad.

“He will trust Truman even less now that he has allied himself with the Legate. And if he isn’t in Memphis already, he’ll be on his way here.” I leaned in close so that only Titus heard the rest of my directions. “Tell him curettage.”

Titus didn’t react as quickly as I might have hoped, he even dared to look past me to Martius. I refused to look over my shoulder, so I can only assume that Martius nodded assent because suddenly Titus saluted with a fist to his chest and was out the door. Faustus followed to lock the door behind him.

I ignored the questioning glances and headed to our room. I knew Martius would follow, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to face him just yet. As I dug through our packs, he closed the door behind him.

“The degenerate woman?”

“Raped.” I didn’t even know how to describe the abuses I saw on her body.

“Did she tell you who?”

“She doesn’t remember, but from what I can piece together, first Truman and then the Legate.” I couldn’t pull my armor off fast enough. It reminded me too much of Nova Roma and for the next few moments I needed to get as far from it as possible. I pulled on one of Martius’s shirts and buttoned it up. “He marked her, Martius. He practiced a sacred mutilation of Bellona.” Again, I had to squash the urge to vomit.  
I found a pair of denim pants and pulled them on, tucking the shirt into the waist. Martius picked up my discarded armor, setting it down neatly in the corner and out of the way. Another few seconds digging around in a pack and I found an old shirt that could be ripped up. When I stood up to leave, he pressed his hands on my shoulders, holding me still for a moment.

“Is it wise to bring another outsider here?” He voice was patient, and held no criticism or chastisement.

“Probably not, but at this point, we can’t really afford to walk away from a potential ally.” I looked up at him. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but now that it’s happened and she’s here. We can use it.”  
His fingertips smoothed over the creases in the shirt while he considered my words. He eventually seemed satisfied and bent down to kiss my forehead. “Sic infinit.”

“Non progredi regredi est.”

“Scio.” His fingers tightened on my shoulders and I pressed my head against his chest, his touch warmed the chill permeating through me.

“He used a sacred ritual to cause harm to another. Not to mention everything else.” I looked up at him. “She’s bleeding, Martius.”

“Go then.” But he didn’t let go. Instead he pressed his lips hard against mine, kissing me with a ferocity that lacked passion, but filled my heart nonetheless. He was thinking what I was thinking. But manu Martis it wasn’t me. “Te amo.”

“Te plus amo.”

I reluctantly pulled away from him and hurried back to the showers. I had already been gone too long.

  
_MARGARITA CATTUS_

I stood in that grimy room, naked, completely naked, in front of that blonde bitch and she had the gall to be nice to me. Well nice wasn’t really the way to describe it. Understanding? Sympathetic? No, that wasn’t it, she was empathetic. She pitied me.

She told me she was going to touch me and I just nodded my head. What else could I do? I tried to hide the wince when she wiped the torn fabric against my flesh, but she was too close to stop it. She was fucking kneeling between my legs. She was looking at me. I mean right at me.

“I don’t think I can stop the bleeding.”

I stared at the wall behind her just so I didn’t have to look at her.

“Margarita Cattus?”

Why the fuck was she calling me that? Why the fuck did I not mind it? Why the fuck did I seem to prefer it? I closed my eyes and bent my head down. I couldn’t look at her. She pressed a twisted column of fabric into my hand.

“We need to put this in.” I heard the hardness in her tone. I felt the steel in her voice as it lanced through me and though the tone wasn’t intended for me, it did something to me that was fucked up even more than all the other fuckery that had happened to me in the last thirty six hours. That fucking tone reassured me.

I opened my eyes and looked down at the fabric. It was small enough that once I got over the whole mental shit storm of sticking it up my cunt, I wouldn’t notice it was there. She turned her back to me. I guess to give me privacy. I didn’t really get it, I mean she had seen, hell even touched the same spots as past lovers, what was a little bit more.

I shouldn’t have thought lovers. I should never have thought that word. His face flashed in front of me. Smiling, charming, so sweet, and then it just melted into the cruel mask he wore the last time I saw him. It was like a fucking absinthe trip without any of the benefits. Only now, I realized the cruel mask was genuine and the charmer was the actual mask. I couldn’t stop the tears and I couldn’t stop the wailing. What the fuck was wrong with me?

One minute I was standing, the next I was sitting on that fucking dirty floor. But the dirty floor was still cleaner than...

It was better if I didn’t go there. I had already plunged head first into a rabbit hole of fucked up fuckery. Lovers, Truman, the Legate, blood, knives, and I was contemplating the relative cleanliness of a floor that hadn’t seen the long end of a cleaning stick compared to me. And the fucking sobs again.

Fucking bitch took the fabric away and pushed my flask into my hand.

“Drink.”

I latched onto the mouth of the flask as though I were a hungry baby latching on to her mother’s nipple. I suppose I was just that in a way. And then, she pulled it away from me before I finished it off. Bitch. Fucking bitch. Fucking cunt Roman wannabe bitch.

“I’ll get you more, I just don’t know when. We need to make this last.”

And then she gave me back the flask. The blonde bitch was making it difficult for me to hate her. I mean, I didn’t think I would ever come to like her, but my hate lessened. Bitch.

I clutched the flask in my hand, holding it to my chest and sobbed. Oh, this was just great. The woman who was the daughter of Romulus, the pride of the men who played at being noble Rome that crumbled and burned two thousand years ago, watched me crack. And she wasn’t laughing. If she was laughing at me it would have been so much easier.

“Margarita Cattus, we need to staunch the bleeding at least.”

I just shook my head and clutched more tightly at the flask. Somehow, I managed to speak through the snot bubbles and tears. “I can’t.”

Of course she took my hand and held it. Why wouldn’t she? I mean really, why wouldn’t she? She just squeezed my fingers. “You can’t stay here and we don’t have enough change of clothes to not use something to slow the bleeding.”

“You do it.” As soon as I said the words, the sobbing stopped. Maybe I didn’t have any more tears to cry. I had enough snot in my nose though. I sniffed hard.

“Are you sure, Margarita Cattus?”

Argh, there was the fucking name again. And her voice so fucking gentle. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck. “Yes.” I couldn’t explain it, even to me, but it was the one thing I was sure about.  
She bent my knees, putting my feet flat on the ground and I stared at a spot on the ceiling.

“I’m so sorry, Margarita Cattus.”

I nodded my head. Her fingers were soft and gentle. But I was dry. Drier than any desert and even though I knew, somehow deep inside I just knew, she didn’t intend to hurt me, it did. My hand tightened around her hand until finally the tip of her finger pressed against my opening. She pulled away from me at the same time I pulled away from her.

My knees snapped shut and I curled over on my side. Everything, and I mean everything, raced through my body. Pain, fear, hunger, thirst, pain again, oh yeah, and even more pain, and how can we forget betrayal and even more pain. I opened my mouth and screamed. Everything that had been locked inside fled out through my mouth. With each gasp of air, I continued to scream and I continued to push out every tiny bit of everything that was smothering me.

I was still screaming when I heard the shouting out in the hallway. But I didn’t care. I just screamed and screamed and screamed. And it felt good. It felt so good. It was the first time in thirty-six hours that I felt good.

Can’t say I remember much of what happened next. I do know that at some point, Bellona, that bitchity bitch bitch, was trying to dress me and finally got frustrated enough to slap me. My throat felt pretty raw, so I must have been screaming for a while. She pushed the open flask between my lips and I took a drink. Who the hell was I to refuse?

“So, I don’t think that you’re in any condition to walk and you can’t sleep here.” She waited for my eyes to focus on her and then took the fucking flask away. Bitch.

“Margarita Cattus, look at me. I have given you sanctuary. You will not be harmed here. But I need to get you to your room. Gaius is going to carry you. He’s big and he’s intimidating, but I will tell you a secret.” She smiled at me. And it wasn’t one of her fake smiles either.

Bitch.

“When I was a little girl, Gaius used to tell me stories about princesses and princes and dragons. He’s an old teddy bear, Margarita Cattus. He will not hurt you. You have my word.”

She was right. I didn’t think that I could walk much less crawl and the shower, her touch, the whiskey, and the screaming had made me feel a little bit better. Fucking Bitch. I nodded my head slowly. She slid the flask into my pocket then stood up and stepped out of the bath. She returned with Gaius who bent down and scooped me up liked I weighed nothing. For the second time since coming to this fucking hell hole of a building, I felt safe. She stayed with me the entire time. She talked me in a soft voice about the dinner that was being prepared. About a turtle crossing a road. About nothing.

Gaius put me down on the bedroll and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders. The guy was the fucking leader of the Praetorian Guard and even though I knew he could have broken me in two, I also knew he wouldn’t.

“You are safe, Margarita Cattus.”

There was that damn name again. But from his mouth it was different. 

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, the bitch was waking me up with exaggerated noises. So not only was she beautiful and mean and cruel and nice and kind and empathetic, she was also smart. Fucking cunt.

She pushed a tin cup to my lips. “Drink.”

It was a tea, it tasted like shit, but I knew the smell. Pennyroyal. I looked up at her. She smiled at me, but it was one that tried to be reassuring. We both knew it failed, but I figured, and I’m sure she did too, that it was better to pretend it worked.

“Would you like to join us out in the room for dinner?”

I swallowed the tea down as quickly as possible. Did I want to? No. But then I didn’t really want to stay alone in the room they gave me either. She took a book down from the shelf and reached for the empty cup.

“Come on, you can read this while Martius finishes making dinner.”

Why the fuck was she being so nice? She’s not nice. She can’t be nice. She’s like the Wicked Witch of the East or something. Fuck. She took my hand and pulled me up. And then, because apparently she’s fucking perfect, she guided me out into the main room. She picked the one spot in the room where I would be comfortable, and sat me down.

Then the bitch had to go and get her books and bring them over to me and sit down with me. Not next to me close like or anything, just near enough to let me know she was there.

Fuck.

I pried the damn book open and started reading. Drought? They were worried about not being able to plant? They needed to head on over to Valley where Mother Nature routinely cause crops to fail not from lack of water, but horrendous flooding instead. The author’s words were pretty though. If words could be pretty and even if I wasn’t planning on admitting it, they distracted me. Not as good as getting drunk, but she was right. Until I got more booze, I needed to ration what I did have.

Fuck me, right?

Everyone wasn’t ignoring me exactly, it was just that they were all doing other things. The big guy, Gaius, was organizing their stores. Things were going into containers and containers were going to specific areas. One of the men who had caught me, well I sorta tripped over them, was cleaning and polishing a pile of armor while the other one was cleaning all the weapons.

And then to top it all off, Martius Calliditas himself was at some jerry-rigged stove cooking device and cooking. It was official, I was dead. We were all dead and this was some kind of hell. We were stuck with people we’d hate to be stuck with. Except they all seemed to like one another and from the mooncalf looks Calliditas was throwing to the bitch, at least two of them more than liked one another.

Yeah, this was just fuckery on a whole ‘nother level. I went back to the book. Reading about a storm brewing that wasn’t a storm with ran seemed to be a wee bit safer. But when the fuck did I ever do anything safe? I kept on looking around the room. Waiting to see the accusatory looks. But they never came. Of course not. They hid their evilousity behind masks.

All men did.

Without having the benefit of seeing the sky, I couldn’t say how much time had passed. I had managed to get through all of the first chapter and most of the second chapter when I realized that the bitch wasn’t next to me anymore. She was standing next to Martius, holding plates out as he served up the food. As each plate was filled, one of the others would come and take it and sit down. She had the last two plates in her hand then Calliditas pulled her down closer to him and kissed her and she kissed him back.

The fuckery just got surreal.

She brought the plates back to where I was sitting and joined me. When I didn’t eat right away, she just pushed the plate closer to me.

“Non ut edam vivis, sed ut vivam edis.” 

“Yeah, I don’t know any of yer all gobbelty gook.”

“You do not live to eat, but eat to live.”

“What’s that supposeta mean exactly?” Great, the words might have been understandable, but it was still gobbelty gook. Of course, you eat to live.

“Margarita Cattus, you had plenty of opportunities to choose not to live before arriving here. Now that you are here, involuntarily but here nonetheless, that is no longer a choice.”

I viciously stabbed the meat. What the fuck? There was meat on the plate and not the dried crap, this was real meat and some other kind of fruity colored mixture. This was real food. She was right. Of course she was right. I didn’t want to die. Before I started walking I had sat at Cormorant with a gun between my lips. I couldn’t pull the trigger.

Some shit was bad shit and some was worse shit, but no shit was worth not living.

The men and Gaius chatted about nothing. Little bits of their Latin words popped into the conversation, but it made their conversation even more mundane.

I chewed on the meat. “You sometimes call Calliditas there mea?

“Yes?” I watched her out of the corner of my eyes. She looked across the room at Martius and smiled. Oh, they were going to be one of those nauseating couples. I just knew it.

“But he calls Gaius, meus amicus.”

“Yes?” She looked at me then. Clearly curious to see where I was planning on going.

“Do meus and mea mean the same thing?”

“Of sorts, yes.”

“So why the different words?” I noticed that, some words seemed to be the same but ended differently.

“It means my. And the word you use depends on the word it is modifying.”

She had to be shitting me. I was getting a Latin lesson? I just wanted to know why the words were different was all.

“In Latin words are either masculine, feminine or neuter. Calliditas is a feminine word so it uses mea, whereas amicus is masculine so it uses meus.” I swore she smirked when she said Calliditas’s name was feminine.

I thought it was a little odd too. “So he has a girl’s name?”

She laughed. “No. There are lots of words that are feminine that can be applied to men. A sailor for instance.”

Calliditas looked up at her laughter and the others followed his gaze.

“Margarita Cattus was curious as to why you were given a girl’s name.”

Gaius elbowed him in the shoulder. “Probably because he used to scream like a little girl”

One of the men smirked. “Used to? I heard him scream out just this afternoon.”

Calliditas rolled his eyes. “I don’t like rats. And it’s not a girl’s name.”

“No one likes rats, meus Martius, but most of us do not resort to sounding like a twelve year old girl when we come across one. Not even twelve year old girls.” Bellona smiled at him.

The laughter, and it wasn’t strained either, echoed large chamber. This was just too much. Calliditas, the Calliditas I knew about, should be cutting out tongues right now with all the teasing. But instead, he laughed with them.

“Mock all you want, but I’ll stop cooking if you cannot stifle the urge.” The laughter died down to snickering, but it didn’t stop.

Yeah, this was so not how I imagined the evil Calliditas and the Wannabe Roman Bitch would behave. The dark haired man, the one Bellona had pushed into the wall—and in all honesty, pushed was sorta an understatement—caught me looking at them. He smiled at me. It wasn’t a lecherous smile like... 

Well no, I was not going there. It was a kinda sad smile. And not the sad smile of knowing they were gonna cut my throat later that night, but the sad smile of someone apologetic.

Fucking hells. There was no warning, no hint, I just started crying again. The men all kinda panicked and stared at me, but Bellona wrapped her arms around me and started talking about that fucking turtle again.

“Margarita Cattus, what is wrong? These men won’t hurt you, I promise.”

The sobs tore through my chest. “I know.” I couldn’t stop the crying any more than I could stop the thoughts invading my mind.

“Tell me what is wrong, Margarita Cattus.” Her fucking hand felt so nice on my head, smoothing my hair down.

“They won’t hurt me.” 

I heard her breath, the deep inhale of someone trying to hide their anger. Her fingers grabbed my shoulders and she pulled me around to face her. The look she gave me just then, the way her eyes were hard, it was the look that caused most of the Valley to fear her.

“Margarita Cattus, I will give you your revenge. I vow here and now to Mars and to Bellona, you will have your revenge.”

The way she looked at me, I believed her. She was going to kill them, at least eventually. But first she would give me my chance at my revenge, even if it killed her. Why hadn’t my friends done that for me? Well I mean besides me not going to them, but one of my friends. One of my friends who really wasn’t a friend. And the woman I thought was my enemy wasn’t really my enemy. Fucking bitch. If I wasn’t careful, I might just come to like her.

I nodded my head and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. The big guy, Gaius, came over. He seemed uncertain, hell I’d be uncertain in his shoes, I might start screaming again for all he knew. He picked me up and brought me back to my room. And he tucked me into the bedroll. I was still crying, but not as hard when he started to walk away.

“Stay.” I didn’t want to be alone. “Please.”

He didn’t touch me, but he put his hand on the bedroll behind me, right next to my shoulder. “I’ll come right back, Margarita Cattus. Okay? I just need to tell them that you’re ok.”  
But that was the problem. I wasn’t okay. My world wasn’t okay. My life wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay anymore.

_MARTIUS_

The fucking Legate. I watched Bellona walk down the hall towards the bathroom and waved Gaius over to me. The men weren’t dumb, they would start putting two and two together soon enough and I needed to make sure that we controlled the story.

“She was raped.”

“I figured it was bad. Aelius and Faustus said she stumbled on them and didn’t fight them at all.” Gaius took a breath. “They didn’t wait her out because she kept on wandering around in circles. They said she seemed lost.”

“Bellona thinks it was both Truman and the Legate.” I stared down the hallway at her retreating form.

“Di.” I saw Gaius shake his head in disgust in my peripheral vision.

“She also said the degenerate woman was marked. Her arms and legs were cut.” I finally turned to look at him. I wanted to see his reaction.

Gaius put his hand on my shoulder. “The Gods favored us then that we were able to get her away from him. Not even a degenerate deserves that.”

“And they also favored us by dropping the woman at our door.” 

He raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing. He already knew that Bell and I were planning something and the look he gave me was the same look he gave me when I almost confessed to him that Bellona and I shared a bed. It was the ‘I really don’t want to know this, so just do us both a favor and shut up’ look.

I looked behind me at the two Frumentarii. “Come on, let’s delve to the higher floors. There will be more of us here soon enough and we might as well have proper rooms.”

The four of us headed up into the building. It was slow moving, but the labor felt good. Occasionally some insect would burst out from behind a crate, but they were easy enough to pick off. We had just cleared out the living quarters on the second floor when we heard the screams.

I’ll admit that it was unnerving, but I also knew that it wasn’t Bellona and that put me at ease. It also wasn’t the scream of pain. I knew the scream that came from pain, and this was not it. I continued with the cleaning and was pleased to see the others following my lead. Unfortunately the screaming didn’t stop.

“Gaius go and see what’s happening.” I looked at Aelius and Faustus. “Let’s go hunting”

They couldn’t get out of the Tower quickly enough. For that matter, neither could I. 

We spent some time covering up the path to the underground entrance and the entrance itself before spreading out as we searched for anything to shoot at. It didn’t take long to spot some prey and if we had too much meat left over, I would make an all-day stew for us to eat throughout the day tomorrow.

“So you and the King’s daughter?” Faustus grinned at me.

“Yes, Bellona and I.” I paused from dressing the carcass to look up at their gaping expressions. “I suggest you do your teasing now if only to prevent Bell from splitting you stem to sternum.” To make my point I did to the beast just what Bell would do to them.

“Not teasing, just wondering when it all happened. Romulus just went to the Gods a few days ago.”

I smirked up at him. “Five years ago in Iunius.”

Aelius smirked. “And Romulus didn’t split you stem to sternum?”

“He didn’t know.” I returned to the butchering. There was something meditative about stripping flesh from bone and it was easy for me to get lost in the exercise.

“How did he not know?”

“Faustus, you did not know.” I flipped the bloody knife around my fingers. They got the message and started wrapping the meat before packing it away.

But Faustus wasn’t done. “So, Martius, since she’s filia Romuli, and we’re all in fugam, does that mean she’s ducem?”

I hadn’t thought about that. While Romulus’s intention of naming me his heir was presumptive as was marrying his daughter, I had never considered what would happen in the situation we now faced. I was however, considering what life would be like if I told the Frumentarii to ignore Bellona’s orders over mine. “I am still head of the Frumentarii, so you will follow my orders. But you will respect her commands the same as if they came from her father. If you have a need to question Bellona’s decisions, come find me in private and we will discuss it.”

The Frumentarii, as a whole, never took Bellona for granted. They knew what she was capable of, but it didn’t lessen the fact that she was a woman. At least they hadn’t commented that I asked them to talk to me in private.

We started dispersing the remains of the carcass so that it resembled a kill from a predator. Hopefully, no one would look closely to see if there were teeth marks in the bones.

“Martius?”

I washed my hands against the dry grass and looked up at Aelius. “Hmm?”

“What’s going on with the degenerate?” Aelius looked between Faustus and me. As if that would be enough to distract me from their impertinent questions.

“She was raped.”

“By someone in Memphis?”

“No, Faustus, by Truman and then the Legate.” I looked between the two of them. “You’ll be spreading this story soon enough, so you might as well know it all. Near as Bell can tell, she had also been mutilated, as though the woman was a Priest of Bellona.”

We headed back to the tower, no one said anything, but I sensed everyone’s hope that the screaming had stopped. “Tomorrow you both need to head out and leave recall messages throughout the territory Nova Roma is holding and in the surrounding areas, as far east as Nashville. Recall everyone to the trading post here. I’ll head over to make sure the drop is still there so that the others can find the Tower.”

Both of my men gave me their assent. But dropping messages for covert agents was going to be easy compared to what else they would have to do. Hopefully, by the time they headed out, Bell, Gaius, and I will have crafted the next part of the plan. “I’ll get our dinner started, you two head back up to the higher floors and see if you can’t clear out any more the junk.”

Again they nodded their assent. If only Bellona would be as compliant, my life would probably be much easier. Not nearly as exciting or enjoyable, but easier.  
The trip back to the vault was uneventful, well almost uneventful. If not for a brave rodent who dared to cross our path, directly over my foot. At least the men managed to hide their snickering as we headed into the Tower and locked it behind us. The men went up to the living area and I started dinner.

Bellona and Gaius arrived shortly after I had sat down to prepare the steaks. They smelled of cleaning products and were covered in grime. I raised an eyebrow at their appearances.

She smirked at me. “You always said that I would never last in Dallas, having to clean a house.”

“I said you would never last in Dallas having to oversee others cleaning a house.”

“Let us change and we’ll be right back.”

“Where’s the degenerate?” I hadn’t seen or heard her.

“Asleep. Thank Mars.” Gaius stripped off his clothing as he entered his room to change.

I watched through the open door as Bellona stripped off the dirty clothing and put on clean clothes. I decided we would move to a real bedroom on one of the higher floors of the Tower in the morning. Faustus wasn’t asking about us for mere curiosity’s sake. Now that Romulus was dead, there would be more than a few ambitious men who saw her as their way to a promotion. 

They both came back at the same time, looking a lot less grimy.

“Shower’s clean at least.” She smiled at me. Mars and Jupiter, I loved that smile. 

“Oh?” I filed the information away for later. “While our guest is asleep, we should probably come up with the story. I am sending Aelius and Faustus out tomorrow morning. They might as well start the gossip.”

Bellona ran her fingers through her hair and scratched at her scalp. “I think we focus on the Legate allying himself with Truman and using the head of the Resistance to gain power.”

“Makes the Legate look weak and Truman power-hungry.” Gaius made a sound of approval. “But how do we handle Margarita Cattus?”

“As a guest of Truman’s at the Legate’s camp, she should have been given the same rights—full protection. Both the Legate and Truman betrayed the convotum honoris Romuli.”  
Bellona grinned at my words. “Falsum Caesarum non spera!”

Both Gaius and I laughed. It was perfect for graffiti and an easy phrase to pass along.

She leaned back on her hands and looked at us. “Well that was anti-climatic. I was expecting this to a lot more difficult.”

Gaius grinned bitterly. “It’s always easier when it’s the truth.”

She nodded her head. “Meus Martius? Did you see any Pennyroyal while you were out?”

“Some.” I was focusing on cooking our meal, but her need of the herb piqued my curiosity. I deliberately looked at her stomach. “Fons et origo?”

“Not for me.” Her hand moved protectively to her lower abdomen.

All three of us turned to look at the room holding our guest.

“I don’t want to think of what the Legate would be capable of if he claimed an heir.”

“She wouldn’t want it. From either of them.” She looked down at her stomach. “A child should be welcomed and wanted, not conceived through force just to prove virility.” Just as quickly, she looked up at us.

“Which reminds me. No one who comes into this Tower will ever be accused of rape.” Her gaze shifted between us. “And that includes slaves.”

“The slave part will be hard to enforce, Bellona.” Gaius tried to placate her. “By virtue of being slaves, they are being raped.”

She tilted her head and smiled a sly smile at me. My stomach lurched. Damn her memory.

“Martius took slaves and always had their consent.”

“And how would you know?” I was almost afraid to ask, but Gaius seemed to be enjoying my plight.

“Women gossip. And though most feared you, the few who visited you seemed to think that you couldn’t possibly be all that bad.”

My ears burned with embarrassment. Not because I had slept with a slave, I was ten years her senior, of course I had slept with others, but that she knew about it and had kept the information for over five years only to use it now. It was also bona fortuna that my men weren’t able to hear her comment.

Gaius snickered and I glared at him even though my words were meant for her. “I knew it didn’t take that long for you to bathe.”

She laughed. I couldn’t tell if it was at me or something else. I hoped something else. “Meus Martius, what I know would overflow the heavens. Quod scio, aetheris effundit.”

She stood up and headed toward the underground passage, I assumed to find the pennyroyal. I couldn’t help myself. “Te effundam.”

She looked over her shoulder at me and winked. “Scio.”

I shook the vision that had invaded my thoughts out of my head and focused on dinner while Gaius did his best to ignore us.

We continued with the mundane, my thoughts occasionally wandering to Bellona and me testing out the cleanliness of the showers. Soon the men returned with sacks full of bones to add to our “closet”. Gaius went back up with them to gather the rest of the goods to bring them down to the main level and Bellona came back. 

When we had a few moments to ourselves, I pulled her into my lap and pressed my hand against her stomach. “Fons et origo.”

“Scio, mea Martius sed non nunc.” She looked so sad as she held my hand against her belly and kissed my neck.

“Bellona?” We had been sleeping with one another for five years and there were no precautions taken. She should have been pregnant at least once by now.

“Hmm?”

“How do you know about pennyroyal?”

“The slaves.”

“Have you?”

She pulled my face towards hers so that she looked into my eyes. “Never. But I believe that there have been times when it was just not meant to be.”

“So you are not barren?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. And it would seem that you are not sterile.” Of course, she would get her dig in. In retrospect, I probably deserved it.

“As soon as more of my men arrive, I will send one out to find a priestess.”

“I am not marrying under Mars.” She stiffened in my arms.

“Why not?”

“Because, you will be the son of Mars and I am the daughter of Mars. That would be... odd. It might give people ideas.” She slipped from my lap and kissed my forehead to soften the blow. “We will find a priestess who is learned enough to teach her the way of Juno, and she will marry us.”

We heard the voices of the men as they returned to the lobby, and she leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Tunc me templo auferes et sub occulis Martis, me futues, et sub occulis Bellonae, te crisabo.”  
She slipped away from me as I swallowed hard. A few deep breaths and I had myself back under control while she brewed the tea for our guest.

**~ ~ ~ ~ ~**

Bellona clung to me, and I couldn’t blame her. Margarita Cattus had broken down and not for the last time were we reminded of what might have happened to her if Gaius and I had not gotten her away. I was holding on to her even more tightly than I had ever held her before. We had visited the showers in hopes that the water washing over us might be calming. And it was, but it also inflamed us.

I lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around my waist. I pressed her back against the wall for additional support and entered her. We weren’t making love, we weren’t even fucking. Instead, we fulfilled the need to be as close to one another as possible. I buried my face into her neck and closed my eyes. She was my Bellona. She had always been only mine. For the first time I contemplated what it would mean for her to be with another and realized I would be a lost and broken man. She was mine, but I needed her. She was my air, my water, my sustenance, the very reason of my being. Ubi amor, ibi dolor.

I breathed into her ear my words of love and adoration and she washed my shoulder and back with her tears.

When we finally made it back to our bedrolls, we clung to one another in our sleep. As though we might be able to fend off the pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are enjoying this novel, please consider supporting the author. You can find entire novel here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L9V9TMS


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